Lakhvi's detention orders declared void

Accepting the plea of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi - the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks - on Friday, the Islamabad High Court declared his detention orders void. A single member bench of Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi ruled after accepting Lakhvi petition filed against detention order, "the petitioner be set at liberty immediately if he is not required in any other case".
On December 18, 2014, an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) had granted post-arrest bail to Lakhvi against surety bonds of one million rupees. Later, the federal government issued Lakhvi's detention orders under Section '3' of the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) - further extended on January 18 and February 18 for 30 days. Making Federation through Ministry of Interior and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) respondents, Lakhvi has challenged his third-time detention orders.
On Friday, a single-member bench of IHC Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi accepted the petition by declaring Lakvi's detention order void. The order sheet of the IHC noted that the apprehensions of the respondent regarding the release of the petitioner were not substantive. It is worth mentioning that IHC suspended Lakvi's first detention order of December 18,2014 and directed the concerned authorities to release him but an FIR was registered in Golra police station against Lakhvi on December 29, 2014 under the charges of kidnapping a person.
The IHC bench said in its order that it could be inferred that the said FIR was registered to detain the petitioner. The order said "the allegations levelled have neither been substantiated by any material despite required by the court nor same appended with the reply submitted by the respondents- under the garb of provision provided by section 3 of the MPO, 1960, the respondents have avoided to produce any material before this court".
It further ruled, "Severally, this court asked the respondents to produce the said material, but learned Advocate General Islamabad as well as learned additional Attorney General with lame excuses submitted that they intend to produce the said record before the Review Board." "In my humble view, on the basis of oral assertions, detention of the present petitioner cannot be declared justifiable," Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi said.
The order maintained that none of the grounds on which Lakhvi's detention was asserted is backed by any incident happened inside Pakistan, adding that on a writ petition of Lakhvi, seeking from the government to intimate about number of cases registered against him, it was told that he is required only in two cases; those were Mumbai terror attack case registered with Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and kidnapping of a citizen case registered at Golra police station. Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi added that the petitioner is already facing a trial in the said cases and has been granted bail by the court of competent jurisdiction.
"Besides above, there is no other material on the basis of which it could be ascertained that detention of the petitioner is justified - under the above narrated circumstances, when the case of the respondents is entirely based upon the material circumvented by the respondents as apparent from the enhanced grounds for detention - therefore, while relying upon the case law reported above ie Hafiz Muhammad Saeed's case, I have reached to the conclusion that impugned detention order issued by the ICT is capricious, malafide and without legal foundation therefore, the same is hereby quashed," IHC Justice Qureshi said.