3 JeM members in Pak court for possessing jihadi literature

Three members of the banned Jaish-i- Muhammad, who were among the over 30 arrested in Pakistan as part of a crackdown on the outfit in the aftermath of the Pathankot terror attack, have been charged in an anti- terrorism court on Sunday for possessing jihadi literature.

Law enforcement agencies had reportedly taken 31 suspects of Jaish-i- Muhammad (JeM) in connection with the Pathankot attack from different parts of Punjab province including Bahawalpur, the hometown of JeM chief Masood Azhar, who is believed to be the mastermind of the attack on the Air Force base in Pathankot. Only three of those arrested were produced before the Anti-Terrorism Court of Sialkot, around 100km from Lahore. The three suspects, however, were not charged in connection with the Pathankot attack and instead were charged for possessing jihadi literature. The suspects were produced amid high security before the ATC. Judge Chaudhry Imtiaz Ahmed granted a three-day physical remand of the three JeM members to police for interrogation.

The suspects were arrested by the Counter Terrorism Department from a seminary run by the JeM in Mundeyki, the headquarters of Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaat-u-Dawah.

Meanwhile, a source in the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of the Punjab police, said, “As the JeM suspects have been picked up in a sensitive matter (Pathankot attack) all of them cannot be produced before a court of law till the completion of the investigation.”