Lakhvi’s arrest only a showcase action to dodge the watchdog

New Delhi, Jan 03: Mumbai attack mastermind and Lashkar-e-Tayiba operations commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was on Saturday arrested in Pakistan on terror financing charges, an official said. The move by Pakistan comes ahead fo the meetings of the Financial Action Task Force in January.

Pakistan has been under immense monitoring by the global watchdog. A top official tells OneIndia that this appears to be a routine exercise.

In Pakistan, such persons are arrested ahead of possible international action. We do not read much into this and there appears to be no seriousness by Pakistan to curb the terror menace. These are just showcase actions, the official said.

Lakhvi, who was on bail since 2015 in the Mumbai attack case, was arrested by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD).
However, the CTD did not mention his place of arrest.

"Following an intelligence-based operation conducted by the CTD Punjab, proscribed organisation LeT leader Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was arrested on charges of terrorism financing," it said.

Pakistan has failed to act on the six important action items stipulated by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), New Delhi had said in October.

India further accused Islamabad of aiding and abetting cross border terrorism, smuggling of arms and narcotic substances. Delhi also said that Pakistan has been using drones and quadcopter to facilitate smuggling.

It is understood that Pakistan has addressed only 21 action items so far out of total 27 point FATF Action Plan. Six important action items are yet to be addressed. As is well known, Pakistan continues to provide safe havens to terrorist entities and individuals and has also not yet taken any action against several terrorist entities and individuals including those proscribed by the UNSC such as Masood Azhar, Dawood Ibrahim, Zakir-ur-Rahman Lakhvi etc, Anurag Srivastava, spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs said.