'Detained JuD leaders could be let off in absence of evidence'

Islamabad, Dec 14 (PTI) Pakistan may release the detained
leaders of the proscribed Jammat-ud-Dawah if India does not
provide evidence of their involvement in the Mumbai terror
attacks, a top police official has said.

The federal government asked the government of Punjab
province to detain seven top Jamaat-ud-Dawah leaders. Of them,
five were put under preventive detention while the others
would be netted shortly, provincial police chief Shaukat Javed
said.

The two leaders, who were yet to be detained had gone to
Saudi Arabia to perform Haj, he said.

However, he told The News daily that detained leaders
would be freed if no evidence of their involvement in the
Mumbai terror attacks is received from India.

Pakistan launched a crackdown on the Jamaat after the
group was declared a front for the LeT by a UN Security
Council panel, which also put four LeT leaders, including
founder Hafiz Mohammed Saeed and suspected Mumbai attack
mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, on a list of terrorists
subject to sanctions.

Saeed and other top Jamaat leaders are among those who
have been detained across Pakistan since the clampdown began
on December 11.

Javed also said all schools and colleges run by the
Jamaat would be allowed to function normally but not under the
control of the banned group. They would work under the
supervision of other bodies to be formed by provincial
governments so that students did not suffer, he said.

In keeping with the requirements of the UN, the JuD had
been proscribed, its functioning had ceased, its offices were
sealed and its activities put under surveillance, he said.

Arms licences issued to Jamaat leaders had been revoked
so that they did not have access to weapons. It was the
responsibility of the federal government to confiscate
properties of the outlawed organisations while the State Bank
of Pakistan had to freeze their banks accounts, Javed said.

A provincial official said the federal government would
shortly decide either to frame formal charges against the
detained Jamaat leaders or to keep them under preventive
detention.

"We will initiate further proceedings against them only
after the federal government (takes) a decision on their
fate," the unnamed official told the newspaper.

As there was "no precise data" about the Jamaat and its
activities, the provincial governments had directed district
coordination officers and district police chiefs to crack down
on known offices of the group, the official said. PTI RHL
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