Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), a religious group headed by Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, has set up a ’Sharia court’ to hand out “easy and swift justice”, the first such parallel judicial system in Pakistan’s Punjab Province.
The court is run under a Qazi (judge), who is assisted by Khadmin s (court associates) to decide complaints. It deals mostly with civil cases relating to property and monetary disputes. The complaints are addressed to Saeed who later refers them to the Qazi for further proceedings.
According to a copy of one of the ‘JuD summons’, it has been dispensing private justice for the last couple of months.
The ‘summon’ orders a man named Khalid to appear before the ‘court’ to ’record his statement’. He is warned of strict action in case of no response.
JuD spokesman Yahya Mujahid defended the establishment of the ‘court’, telling Dawn News that it was not a “parallel system” but an “arbitration court, which decides disputes with the consent of the parties”. He also said that offering arbitration to confronting parties is not illegal. However, he could not justify issuance of summons carrying a “warning of strict action” in case of non-compliance.
This is the first ‘Sharia court’ established in the Punjab. Earlier, they were functioning in Kyber Pakhtaunkhawa, operated by pro-Taliban groups. “The Punjab government of Shahbaz Sharif is aware of this but it has deliberately turned a blind eye to it because it is not willing to lay hands on the JuD”, said a source in the Punjab government.
