LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court on Saturday delayed indictment of Jamatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed and others owing to unavailability of one of the suspects in a case registered by the CTD on charges of terror financing.

Mr Saeed, Abdul Salam bin Muhammad and Muhammad Ashraf were brought to court from jail amid tight security. However, another JuD leader namely Prof Zafar Iqbal was not produced before court as he was due to appear before a court of Gujranwala in another case.

ATC-I Judge Malik Arshad Bhutta delayed indictment of the suspects due to unavailability of a suspect and adjourned further hearing till Dec 11.

The JuD leaders deny allegations against them as being baseless and a result of international pressure on the Pakistan government. They claim that they have been charged in cases by wrongly attributing as leaders of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

They plead it was an admitted fact supported by superior courts’ decisions that they had already quit the LeT before the organisation was proscribed in 2002. They argue the cases against them have been made on the basis of link to defunct Al-Nifal Trust which, they claim, was formed to construct mosques in the country. They say the CTD registered cases without any substantive evidence.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2019