AFTER being kept in detention for nearly six months, Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed has been released at the orders of a Lahore High Court Bench, which maintained that sufficient grounds were not available to detain the prisoner. Talking to media soon after his release, Hafiz Saeed again reiterated the stand that he opposed suicide attacks. Within hours of the release, Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna accused Pakistan of lack of seriousness in fighting terror and probing the Mumbai attacks. He vowed that New Delhi would mobilise the world community to pressure Pakistan. In other words, India would like to internationalise the issue instead of talking to Pakistan, a policy it adopted after the Mumbai attacks. His remark "Now it is in Pakistan's court to create conditions for the dialogue to be resumed" indicates that New Delhi would use the issue as an excuse to continue to postpone the composite dialogue which puts on the table among other matters, the core issue of Kashmir. The Indian media was not far behind the government, as invariably happens when it comes to maligning Pakistan. The Times of India accused the Pakistan government of engineering the release of Hafiz Saeed by presenting before the court a weak case. According to the paper, there was an essential ambiguity in Islamabad's anti-terror commitments. On the other hand, nailing the Indian propaganda barrage, Pakistan's Foreign Office has maintained that the release had taken place under the orders of an independent court. Replying to the charge that Pakistan is not cooperating to prosecute those responsible for Mumbai blasts, the spokesman reiterated Islamabad's stand that New Delhi has continued to hold back the required information. It is highly condemnable to deprive anyone of his liberties as ensured by the Constitution without a valid reason, in the present case for nearly half a year. There was no justification to put Hafiz Saeed under house arrest before first making sure that a foolproof case could be made out against him. The court was told that Hafiz Saeed was booked in compliance with the UN resolution. The charge was levelled presumably without going through the provisions. As the counsel for the petitioner argued, the UNSC resolution 1267 which targets JD makes no mention of detaining its leaders or members but only imposes a travel ban, arms embargo and the freezing of assets. This creates the perception that the charges were fabricated after the arrest. The stand taken in the court by the Deputy Attorney General was equally flimsy. According to him, the government is not bound to convey the reasons for his arrest to a detenu. Supposing this was permissible, which it is not by any standard of justice, why did the prosecution fail to bring before the court what it considered the real reasons, if any, for the arrest?