LAHORE, Aug 16: Justice Mohammad Akhtar Shabbir of the Lahore High Court on Wednesday directed the Punjab government to produce the home department notification under which Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed was placed under house arrest.

The court also directed the provincial government to submit on Aug 23 a report stating reason for his detention.

The court issued the orders in the hearing of a petition through Maimoona Saeed, wife of the Dawa chief, who submitted that the detention was without a cogent reason and the notification was issued by the government in violation of various provisions of the 1973 Constitution.

Her counsel advocate Nazir Ahmad Ghazi submitted that the home department issued the detention notice in such a haste as it did not bear signatures of the competent authority.

The counsel stated that the government had detained Hafiz Saeed on the ground that he was likely to instigate people to resort to extremism by way of his rhetoric in the speech, which he planned to deliver at the Minar-i-Pakistan on Aug 12.

He submitted that the delivering of a speech and using the right to propagate Islam was by no means an offence to confine movement of a leader.

Hafiz Saeed was placed under one-month detention at his house in Jauhar Town on Aug 10 under section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance. —Correspondent