[The News (Pak)] A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Wednesday granted bail to 11 activists of the Jamaatud Dawa, who were in jail since the UN imposed sanctions on the JD. Abdul Shakoor, Muhammad Hanif and others were arrested from Bahawalnagar under anti-terrorism act. But a bit of time's gone by, attention spans have waned, and they can be safely sprung now.
During the course of hearing, Deputy Prosecutor General Chaudhry Jamshed argued that the JD was a banned organisation but its activists continued collecting funds, distributing religious literature and doing other activities.
Such as recruiting for Lashkar-e-Taiba and global jihad...
At this, accused-petitioner's counsel Irshadullah Chatta stated that there was no notification regarding the ban on JD. He argued that an organisation could not be banned until a notification under Section 11 B was issued.
The gummint, naturally, hasn't gotten around to doing that...
He said the government had already admitted in the Hafiz Saeed case that it had no substantial evidence against the Jamaatud Dawa. The bench comprising Chief Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif and Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry after hearing the arguments granted them bail against surety bonds of Rs 100,000 each. The released JD activists included Muhammad Siddiq, Abbas Dogar, Saeed Amir, Arif Ali, Muhammad Akram, Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, Master Abdul Shakoor and Muhammad Anwar.