Lahore/New Delhi, Sep 24 - Hafiz Saeed, who India holds to be mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, is not under house arrest and is a free man, his lawyer said Thursday, adding he had appealed against the two new cases filed against him by the Pakistan government.

'He is not under arrest. He is a free man and going about his work,' lawyer A.K. Dogar told Indian TV news channel CNN-IBN.

Dogar said he had also filed a petition Thursday in the Lahore High Court against the two first information reports (FIRs) that had been filed last week against Saeed, the founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group that India blames for the Nov 26-29,2008 Mumbai carnage that claimed the lives of over 170 people, including 26 foreigners.

'I have seen the FIRs. There is nothing in them,' Dogar maintained.

Police in Faisalabad, 100 km from the Pakistan capital Islamabad, last Thursday lodged the FIRs against Saeed for making a speech last month in which he called for a jihad and appealed for funds for the Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD), an Islamic charity front that the LeT had morphed into after being banned in the wake of the Dec 13, 2001 attack on the Indian parliament.

On Monday, it was reported that Saeed had been put under house arrest and that a posse of policemen had been deployed outside his residence, 'restricting his movement'. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani confirmed that Saeed had been arrested, saying the evidence against him would decide what action needs to be taken.

'The interior ministry can tell you the actual position but I believe he is in custody.