LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday dismissed a habeas corpus petition filed by a lawyer challenging detention of Jamatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed.

Justice Erum Sajjad Gull heard the petition of Advocate Sarfraz Hussain as objection case and upheld an objection put by the registrar office on its maintainability. The office had stated that the petitioner had not furnished the impugned notification of Saeed’s detention.

During the hearing, Advocate A.K Dogar appeared before the court and stated that a separate petition would be filed soon on behalf of Hafiz Saeed challenging his detention.

Advocate Hussain had contended that Hafiz Saeed was detained in the light of the United Nations’ resolution of 2008. However, he said, the resolution of the UN Security Council passed in 1948 for holding a plebiscite in India-held Kashmir had not been implemented so far.

The lawyer stated that the JuD chief had been detained for keeping the Kashmir issue alive and the move was liable to be declared void as there was no nexus with anti-terrorism laws, which had been manoeuvered by the government to curtail the liberty of a Pakistani citizen at the behest of a foreign mission.

He asked the court to get the JuD chief recovered from the illegal and improper detention and set him at liberty in the interest of justice.

The government had placed Hafiz Saeed and four other members of his organisation under house arrest last week for a period of three months.

Published in Dawn February 8th, 2017