Pakistan: 26/11 attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed's JuD, FIF no longer in banned terror outfits' list
Hafiz Saeed's counsel informed the IHC that the ordinance was neither extended by the current government nor it was tabled in the Parliament to convert it into act
United Nations designated terrorist and 26/11 attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-ud-Dawa(JuD) and Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) are no longer mentioned in the list of Pakistan's banned terror outfits after a presidential ordinance that prohibited them under a UN resolution lapsed.
Earlier in February, the then Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain promulgated an ordinance amending the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, thereby banning terrorists and terror outfits that were listed by the UNSC. The JuD and FIF were banned under this ordinace.
According to a petition filed by Saeed, his counsels Raja Rizwan Abbasi and Sohail Warraich told the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday that the ordinace had lapsed and was never extended by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, reported The Dawn.
Hafiz Saeed challenged the ordinance under which his organisations, the JuD and FIF, were blacklisted for being on the watch list of the UN Security Council. In his plea, Saeed had claimed that the ordinance issued was against the sovereignty and Constitution of Pakistan.
Hafiz Saeed's counsel informed the IHC that the ordinance was neither extended by the current government nor it was tabled in the Parliament to convert it into act. Subsequently, the judge said that Saeed's plea was no longer effective as the ordinance was not extended by the government.
The Pakistan government had banned terror organisations and individuals from making donations to JuD, FIF and others on the UN Security Council sanctions list. The UNSC sanctions list includes the names of terror outfts like Al-Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, JuD, FIF and Lashkar-e-Taiba.