This Article is From Mar 13, 2015

26/11 Mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi's Release Ordered by Pakistan Court

File photo of 26/11 mastermind Zaki Ur Rehman Lakhvi

Islamabad:

As a court on Friday ordered the release of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the man accused of plotting the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, India said it is Pakistan's responsibility to take all legal measures to ensure that he doesn't come out of jail.

The Islamabad High Court has ruled that Lakhvi's detention is illegal.

"The overwhelming evidence against Lakhvi has not been presented properly before court by Pakistani agencies," the Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said, adding that Pakistan must realise "there are no good terrorists or bad terrorists."

Lakhvi, a top commander of the banned terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, has been in jail since 2009 over the attacks in Mumbai a year before, in which 166 people were killed.

India was furious and several countries were critical when Lakhvi was granted bail by an anti-terror court in December, just two days after a terror attack on a school in Peshawar in which over 140 people, mostly students, were killed.

The anti-terror court had said that it did not have evidence to prove his involvement in the worst-ever terror attack in India.

India summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit to register its protest against the order that would have allowed the terror mastermind to walk free.

 The Pakistan government was forced to detain him again on a kidnapping charge but on an appeal by his lawyers, the high court suspended his detention a few days later.

The government then challenged the Islamabad high court order in the Pakistan Supreme Court, which in January ordered that Lakhvi will stay in jail.

Lakhvi is one of seven people on trial in Pakistan for the siege of Mumbai, but the trial has produced no results so far. India has repeatedly warned Pakistan that the glacial pace of the trial is unacceptable and undermines Pakistan's stated position on checking terrorism.

Indian investigators have submitted voice samples and other evidence that reveal Lakhvi talking on satellite phones to the 10 terrorists who sailed into Mumbai and attacked its most famous landmarks.

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