‘Top militant’ release challenged

Profile: Hafiz Mohammad Saeed

Pakistan's government has challenged the release of the head of an Islamic charity suspected of being a front for a group accused of the Mumbai attacks.

The Supreme Court has accepted two appeals filed by the federal government and the provincial Punjab government.

Last month, Lahore High Court ruled that the continued house arrest of Jamaat-ud-Dawa founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed was unconstitutional.

The charity is accused of being a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba.

India says the group was behind last November's deadly Mumbai (Bombay) attacks which killed more than 170 people, including nine gunmen.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa denies any links with militants.

Mr Saeed, who is also a founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, denies the charges against him.

He was placed under house arrest in December after the UN added him to a list of people and groups linked to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

'Lawful'

"We aren't satisfied with the judgment of the [Lahore] high court," Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar was quoted by news agency Reuters as saying.

"It did not give weight to the United Nations Security Council resolutions in respect of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa," he said.

The high court had ordered Mr Saeed's release saying the house arrest was "against the law and constitution of the country".

More than 170 people died in the attacks in Mumbai in November

Mr Khawar said Mr Saeed's detention had been lawful.

"For preventive detention, evidence isn't necessary. It's done on the basis of classified information which may not be produced before the court at this stage," he said.

Following the high court order, India had expressed its concern about Pakistan's commitment to fighting militancy.

"Pakistan has not shown the degree of seriousness and commitment it should have to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks," Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram had said.

Mr Saeed, who has been arrested several times in the past for attacks in India, has denied any links with militancy or militants.

In an interview with the BBC just before being placed under house arrest in December, he denied any connection with the Mumbai attacks.

But the Indian authorities say there is evidence to show that they were planned and financed by Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan.

Mr Saeed has been named on the official charge sheet in connection with the attacks.

Pakistan has admitted that they had been partly planned from its soil.

The sole surviving suspected gunman is Pakistani and is currently on trial in Mumbai.

Founded in the late 1980s, Lashkar-e-Taiba is one of most feared groups fighting against Indian control in Kashmir.

After it was banned in Pakistan in 2002, the organisation divided itself into Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Lashkar-e-Taiba, correspondents say.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa works as an Islamic charity all over Pakistan.