Outrage forces Pak to book Lakhvi afresh, keep him in jail

ISLAMABAD: Lashkar commander and key handler of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, was on Friday sent to Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail for up to three months, upturning a bail granted the day before by an anti-terror court. Lakhvi was booked afresh under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) in a move that appeared aimed at quelling domestic criticism and strong global condemnation that saw the bail verdict as dilution of Pakistan’s resolve to wage war on terror.
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Lakhvi, 54, had been granted bail due to lack of evidence by an Islamabad anti-terrorism court on a surety bond of Rs 500,000.
The government has also decided to challenge the verdict of the trial court in the high court. “I will challenge the bail approval in Islamabad high court on Monday,” prosecution chief Chaudhry Azhar said.
Lakhvi was booked under MPO following a direction from the interior ministry, a jail warden confirmed.
Lakhvi’s release on bail drew outrage in India. Indian home minister Rajnath Singh had urged the Nawaz Sharif government to get Lakhvi’s bail cancelled.

“Despite repeated assurances that have been received, we have seen both the prosecution of the seven accused in the anti-terror court in Islamabad, as also the investigation by the authorities into the larger conspiracy surrounding the Mumbai attack case, proceeding at a glacial pace,” said Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman of India’s external affairs ministry.

The bail verdict could not have come at a worse time, just two days after the bloody massacre in an Army school in Peshawar, where militants killed at least 132 children and nine adults.
The decision was also widely condemned in Pakistan social media. Due to fear factor, moderate and progressive Pakistanis often remain silent over activities of non-state actors but the brutal killing of schoolchildren in Peshawar has given them the courage to speak. Reaction against Lakhvi’s bail and protest in front of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid indicate that the public perception about activities of non-state actors and their apologists has significantly changed in the country.

Lakhvi is among the seven Pakistani nationals accused of planning and abetting the brazen terror attack in Mumbai on November 26, 2008 that left 166 dead, including foreigners.
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