LeT founder Hafiz Saeed’s family to move court against house arrest

Hafiz Saeed’s family will move court to overturn his house arrest, the Jamaat Ud Dawah (JuD) chief’s son-in-law said on Tuesday, hours after Pakistan ordered the preventive detention as part of a possible wider crackdown on the extremist organisation.

Hafiz Saeed’s family will move court to overturn his house arrest, the Jamaat Ud Dawah (JuD) chief’s son-in-law said on Tuesday, hours after Pakistan ordered the preventive detention as part of a possible wider crackdown on the extremist organisation.

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, chief of the banned Islamic charity Jamat-ud-Dawa, speaks with media as he is escorted to his home before being put under house arrest in Lahore, Pakistan. (Reuters Photo)

“We will go to court. That’s where we got relief the last time,” Khalid Waleed, Hafiz Saeed’s son-in-law told Hindustan Times over the phone from an undisclosed location in Pakistan.

“I have gone underground,” claimed Waleed, who is married to Saeed’s daughter. Waleed is an important member of the JuD and heads operations in Lahore.

Saeed and four of his aides were placed in preventive detention late on Monday night at the order of the federal interior ministry.

Since then, several members of the JuD have been detained in raids across various premises of the ‘charitable organisation’ including the headquarters in Muridke, known worldwide to be the headquarters of the Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Ajmal Kasab, one of the ten terrorists who came to Mumbai from Karachi to orchestrate the 2008 attack, had told his interrogators that he had been trained in Muridke under Saeed’s supervision.

Saeed had been put under house arrest after the Mumbai attacks in 2008, which killed 166, but was released within six months by the Lahore high court which cited lack of India against a person India considers the mastermind.

The JuD has deep affiliations with the Pakistani army and the Nawaz Sharif government but Waleed in a give-away line said, “None of the senior officers are taking our calls this time.”

He blamed the bond between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sharif and the ‘’pressure by Modi on the new Donald Trump administration’’ for the latest move in which Saeed’s home in Lahore has been converted into a sub-jail.

The preventive custody has also come a few days before February 5, when the JuD takes the lead in observing it as Kashmir solidarity day. The Jamaat holds rallies across Pakistan and Saeed has often led them in the past.