Q+A - Who is Pakistan's Hafiz Mohammad Saeed?

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan lodged appeals on Monday against a court decision to release Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, an Islamist militant leader whom India has accused of plotting a bloody assault on the Indian city of Mumbai in November.

Saeed was put under house arrest in early December after a U.N. Security Council committee added him and an Islamist charity he heads to a list of people and organisations linked to al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Here are some questions and answers about Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Islamic groups in Pakistan.

WHO IS SAEED?

-- A former teacher of Islamic studies at Lahore's University of Engineering and Technology, Saeed co-founded Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in 1990.

-- The LeT for years battled Indian forces in the disputed Kashmir region, but Saeed stepped down as its leader shortly after India accused the group of being behind a militant attack on its parliament in December 2001. The group was banned in Pakistan in January 2002.

-- Saeed now heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) Islamist charity, which the United Nations said in December was an LeT front.