A Pakistani court on Monday suspended the detention order of 26/11 lynchpin Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, unconvinced with the government’s argument to detain him following his bail on December 18.
The move effectively makes the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander a free man, though he is yet to be released from a high-security Rawalpindi prison, and is likely to further inflame tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad since his bail order had triggered a wave of protests in India where wounds of the 2008 carnage in which 166 people died are still raw.
Monday's development further angered New Delhi and the foreign ministry summoned Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit to protest the relief offered to Lakhvi, a second time after 10 days of wrangling.
The Pakistan government plans to appeal the Islamabad high court’s decision, underscoring prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s zero-tolerance approach against terrorists in the aftermath of the Peshawar school carnage.
The suspension can be withdrawn if the government challenges it, government lawyer Jehangir Jadoon said.
An Islamabad anti-terrorism court granted bail to Lakhvi on December 18 citing lack of evidence against him, but before he could be released from jail, the government detained him for three more months under a stringent public safety law.
An official said Lakhvi was detained to prevent him from attending any public meeting and regrouping with other terrorists after the Peshawar massacre. Lakhvi’s counsel argued that he had nothing to do with the Peshawar attack and hence imposition of the public safety law on him was redundant.
The official said the government might detain him in another case. “Since the release of Lakhvi from jail will draw flak from across the world, especially India, the Pakistani government may detain Lakhvi in any other case like it did in the case of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) chief Malik Ishaq.”
Ishaq was remanded in judicial custody in a murder and terrorism case just before his release from a jail after government did not seek extension of his detention under the public security order.
Lakhvi was arrested in December 2008 and was indicted along with six others on November 25, 2009, in connection with the ghastly Mumbai attacks. The trial has been on since 2009, but its tardy progress has sparked fears that the government was allowing it to die a quiet death.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
from Top Stories - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&ct2=in&usg=AFQjCNGAy87sQt9LW02HBLV_QT1Xi3PJHw&clid=c3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331&cid=52778694063824&ei=JVShVIjNHdOK8AHz5YG4DQ&url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/news-feed/images//article1-1301304.aspx
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment