August 24, 2006	Thursday	Rajab 28, 1427

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LAHORE, Aug 23: The capital city police on Wednesday deposed before Justice Muhammad Akhtar Shabbir of the Lahore High Court that Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the chief of the Jamaatud Dawa Pakistan, was placed under house arrest on Aug 10 because he was planning to disrupt public peace by organising a rally on the independence day.

The police also submitted a notification issued under section 3 of the MPO through which the Dawaa chief was placed under house arrest for one month.

The court adjourned till Aug 25 further hearing of the constitutional writ petition through which Maimoona Saeed, the wife of Hafiz Saeed, had challenged her husband’s detention which, she stated, was without a cogent reason and the notification was issued by the government in violation of various provisions of the 1973 Constitution.

Meanwhile, the petitioner has also moved the Punjab home secretary in an application seeking the withdrawal of the detention order.

The petition stated that the notification of detention was not issued by the competent authority as it did not bear the signatures of any of the officers.

The petitioner stated that the government had placed Hafiz Saeed under detention on the grounds that he was likely to instigate people to resort to extremism by way of his fiery rhetoric in the independence day 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 means an offence to confine the movement of a leader.

Hafiz Saeed was placed under one-month detention at his house in Jauhar Town on Aug 10.