Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba outfit, which is fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, was held in the eastern city of Lahore for a one-month period, a Punjab province home department official said.

"Hafiz Saeed has been detained to maintain law and order," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Saeed abandoned Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2001 -- a day 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.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa spokesman Yahya Mujahid said the detention order was served by a provincial official late Wednesday, ahead of a public meeting Dawa had planned to mark Pakistan's August 14 Independence Day.

The authorities have also withdrawn permission granted earlier to stage the rally on Saturday in Lahore, Mujahid said.

Police have been posted outside Saeed's house in the city's Johar Town neighbourhood and the building has been declared a "sub-jail" which he is forbidden from leaving, Mujahid said.

"We will challenge the detention orders in a court of law if they are not withdrawn," he said.

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.

The bombings have stalled the two-year-old peace process between India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars since independence in 1947 -- two of them over Kashmir.

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