Six leaders of the Haifa Saeed’s banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) were acquitted by the Lahore High Court on Saturday, 6 November, in a terror financing case. JuD is a front outfit for the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the terror group behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, reported PTI.
According to the PTI report, on the basis of an FIR registered by the Punjab police, the anti-terrorism court in Lahore in April 2021 sentenced Prof Malik Zafar Iqbal, Yahya Mujahid (JuD spokesperson), Nasarullah, Samiullah and Umar Bahadur to a nine year imprisonment.
The court also handed a six month jail sentence to Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, the brother-in-law of Saeed.
However, on Saturday, the Lahore High Court Bench of Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti and Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh ruled that the trial court failed to prove the charge against the accused beyond reasonable doubt.
The report further states that the Al-Anfal Trust, of which the six leaders were members, did not have any connection with LeT. However, the prosecution argued that the trust is a proxy of the terror outfit and the appellants were office-bearers of the trust.
The Lahore Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) has sentenced Saeed to a collective 36 years on terror finance charges in five cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. He was arrested in July 2019 and is serving his sentence at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail.
Saeed has been listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States since 2012 and has offered $10 million for any information which brings him to justice.
Pakistan PM Removes Extremist Group TLP From Banned List
Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government has reportedly signed an agreement with Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and also dropped the group from the banned outfits list.
According to an IANS report, the deal also included releasing hundreds of arrested TLP protesters from Pakistani jails and also allow the group to contest in elections (both provincial and general) as it is a registered political party.
The government's secret agreement with the TLP has sparked widespread criticism by the masses against the Imran Khan government, as they question him for allowing a banned organisation to paralyse the country and decide the country's political and ideological course, despite having no representation in the parliament.
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