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31 December 2014

Pakistan offsets Lakhvi detention suspension, arrests him for abduction

Dec 31, 2014

Lakhvi (54) was arrested in an abduction case and shifted to an Islamabad police station from Rawalpindi's Adiala jail, where he has been lodged since he was booked for his role in the Mumbai carnage in 2008.

ISLAMABAD: Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist and 26/11 plotter ZakiurRehmanLakhvi was arrested on Tuesday in an unrelated case a day after a local court suspended his preventive detention. 

Pakistan had been forced to put Lakhvi under detention after an anti-terrorism court granted him bail in the Mumbai attacks case on December 18. 

Lakhvi (54) was arrested in an abduction case and shifted to an Islamabad police station from Rawalpindi's Adiala jail, where he has been lodged since he was booked for his role in the Mumbai carnage in 2008. 

A fresh First Information Report was registered against him for kidnapping one Anwar Khan at Islamabad's Golra police on Monday night hours after the Islamabad high court suspended his detention under the Maintenance of Public Order. 

But he was lodged at Shalimar police station in Islamabad's posh F-10 sector for security reasons. 

He was produced before a local court in Islamabad amid tight security on Tuesday. During the brief hearing, police requested the court to grant a two-day remand of Lakhvi, which the court accepted. 

He was driven back in a convoy of police vehicles to Shalimar police station. 

The suspension of Lakhvi's detention had prompted a strong reaction from India. The ministry of external affairs summoned Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit to protest Lakhvi's release order on Monday. 

Pakistan had pledged to challenge Lakhvi's bail when he was granted it in the Mumbai attacks case on December 18. But that has not happened so far. 

Lakhvi is among seven Pakistani suspects being prosecuted in Pakistan for planning, financing and executing the Mumbai carnage. 

New Delhi has given evidence about Lakhvi and his co-accused to Islamabad in the case. 

But the slow pace of the trial has highlighted inherent flaws in Pakistan's judicial system. The evidence included voice samples, phones data, and timings of communications besides other related evidence. 

Lakhvi was in touch via satellite phone from Karachi with 10 terrorists, who sailed into Mumbai and killed 166 people there in November 2008. 

Lakhvi's bail had provoked outrage and raised questions about Pakistan's resolve to fight terrorism. It came a day after the country suffered the worst terrorist attack on an army-run school in Peshawar in which around 150 people, mostly kids, were killed. 

Lakhvi had been arrested along with his accomplices from LeT's headquarters in Muzaffarabad in December 2008. A case against them was registered in February 2009 and they have been in jail since then. 

Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist who was caught and later executed for the Mumbai attacks, had named Lakhvi as his trainer. 

Abu Jandal, an Indian arrested and deported from Saudi Arabia in June 2012, too confessed he was in the control room with Lakhvi in Karachi monitoring the Mumbai attacks. 

Pakistani-American David Headley, who had visited India ahead of 26/11, too had named Lakhvi for his role in 26/11.

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