Pakistan again detains former Lashkar chief

Hafiz Mohammad Saeed was picked up from his residence in the eastern city of Lahore late Tuesday and taken to a detention facility in a neighbouring town.

"He returned home after the government released him on the orders of the Lahore High Court on Monday and was with his family when police raided his residence late Tuesday," Mujahid said.

He said police detained Saeed under a maintenance of public order ordinance, a law under which authorities can detain a person considered a threat to public peace for up to three months without charge.

Saeed abandoned Lashkar-e-Taiba in January 2002 -- just before it was banned by Pakistan's military ruler President Pervez Musharraf -- and set up the Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, regarded as its political wing.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is on the US watch list of terrorist organisations and has been blamed for several major attacks, including a December 2001 assault on the Indian parliament which brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

Indian law enforcement officials suspect Lashkar-e-Taiba and another group called the Students Islamic Movement of India played a role in July's serial train blasts in Mumbai which killed 183 people.

Pakistan briefly placed Saeed under house arrrest in February to prevent a protest over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in European newspapers. He was also held in late 2002 but the courts declared his detention at that time was illegal.