A Pakistani court has asked the federal government to respond by the 29th of this month to a petition filed by Hafiz Saeed, the chief of the LeT-linked JuD, seeking legal aid to defend him in a lawsuit filed in a US court by relatives of two Jewish victims of the Mumbai attacks. Justice Umar Ata Bandial of the Lahore High Court directed the Deputy Attorney General to appear before him with the government's reply to Saeed's petition. Saeed, who heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, had wanted his petition to be heard by Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry but he refused and forwarded the matter to Justice Bandial. Saeed's lawyer said, the federal government announced on the 31st December that it would defend other persons named in the US lawsuit, including Inter-Service Intelligence officials, but it did not show any intention to defend Saeed. He said, Saeed is a citizen of Pakistan and should be defended by the government. The court in Brooklyn has summoned current ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha and his predecessor Nadeem Taj and Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) leaders, including Saeed, to appear before it in connection with the lawsuit filed by relatives of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, who were among the 166 people killed during the Mumbai carnage.