Pakistan’s anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Monday, 15 July, granted pre-arrest bail to Jamatud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and three others in a case pertaining to the outfit's alleged illegal use of land for its seminar, ANI reported.
According to Pakistani media outlet Dawn, the court granted interim bail to Saeed along with Hafiz Masood, Ameer Hamza, and Malik Zafar, until 31 August against surety bonds of Rs 50,000 each.
The relief for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind comes amid the country’s Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) action against him, in nearly two dozen cases of terror financing and money laundering.
The CTD, which registered the cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, in five cities of Punjab, declared that the JuD was financing terrorism from the massive funds collected through non-profit organisations and trusts, including Al-Anfaal Trust, Dawatul Irshad Trust and Muaz Bin Jabal Trust.
These non-profit organisations were banned in April as the CTD, during investigations, found that they had links with the JuD and its top leadership.
It had accused them of financing terrorism by building huge assets/properties from the collected funds in Pakistan.
Saeed, on 12 July, challenged the terror financing cases in the Lahore High Court (LHC) and urged the court to declare the First Information Report (FIR) registered against the them null and void.
Saeed, meanwhile, further added that he has no relations with the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Al Qaeda or any other similar organisations.
The CTD said it had registered cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act in Lahore, Gujranwala and Multan against the leadership of banned outfits JuD, LeT and Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF).
(With inputs from ANI, Dawn and IANS)
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