Lakhvi remanded to custody

ISLAMABAD, Jan 1:
Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attack, was today sent back to a Rawalpindi jail after a court here remanded him to 14 days judicial custody for the abduction of an Afghan national, amid a row with India over his release in the 26/11 case.
Lakhvi, 54, was produced before a judicial magistrate of the local court here on the expiry of his two-day physical remand.
The magistrate rejected the police’s request for further five days remand to interrogate the suspect and sent him to judicial custody for 14 days at Adiala Jail where he had been detained in the Mumbai terror attack case for the last five years. He will be produced again before the court on January 15.
Just before Lakhvi was to be released on Tuesday after Islamabad High Court suspended his detention, he was arrested on charges of kidnapping a man named Muhammad Anwar Khan, an Afghan national.
According to an FIR registered on Monday at a police station in Islamabad, Khan was kidnapped by Lakhvi six years ago.
The court also granted Lakhvi’s two-day physical remand to police.
Lakhvi was granted bail on December 18 in the Mumbai attack case but was detained under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO). He challenged his detention under MPO in the Islamabad High Court which on Monday suspended the Government order, evoking a strong reaction from India.
However, Pakistan today said an unnecessary hype was created on grant of bail to Lakhvi and claimed that the Mumbai attack case is being pursued vigorously by prosecution.
As regard to Lakhvi, “the case is sub-judice. It is unfortunate that an unnecessary hype was created on grant of bail to Mr Lakhvi. These are legal matters and media trials serve no purpose. We should wait for the outcome of the case. The case is progressing well,” Foreign Office (FO) spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
According to the FIR against Lakhvi in the abduction case, Khan went missing from Islamabad’s Thallan Syedan suburb some six years ago.
Khan’s brother-in-law Muhammad Daud accused Lakhvi for the kidnapping.
According to the FIR, Lakhvi motivated Khan for Jihad, but he refused. One day Lakhvi came along with his accomplices at his house and took Khan with him.
Daud told police that he tried several times to contact Lakhvi after his arrest in 2009 but without success.
“Only after learning from television news that Lakhvi is going to be released, and thinking he may go underground, I requested the Islamabad police to take action against the accused for kidnapping Khan,” he said.
Lakhvi and other six accused – Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum — have been charged with planning and executing the Mumbai attack that took place on November 26, 2008, and left 166 people dead.
Lakhvi was arrested in December 2008 and was indicted along with the six others on November 25, 2009 in connection with the case. The trial has been underway since 2009. (PTI)

Follow our WhatsApp channel