26/11 mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman-Lakhvi gets bail in kidnapping case

Islamabad, Jan 9: A Pakistan civil court has granted bail to 26/11 mastermind and Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi in a six-year-old kidnapping case against a surety of Rs 2 lakh.

But the 54-year-old militant cannot be released from Adiala Jail Rawalpindi till another court decides his detention under the government's Maintenance of Public Order.

"A lower court of Islamabad admitted Lakhvi's application in the abduction case of Anwer Khan, an Afghan national, and granted him bail against the surety bonds of worth Rs 200,000," his counsel Raja Rizwan Abbasi told reporters.
Abbasi said he told judge Mian Azhar Nadeem that his client had been implicated in in "false and fabricated" FIR.

He said the FIR had ghost character (Anwer Khan) and the police made a concocted story to keep his client in jail after the Islamabad High Court had suspended the government's order to detain his client.

He claimed the government had rushed to register a false case against Lakhvi on the pressure of India which was not happy over the release of his client in Mumbai attack case.

"The police will seek Lakhvi's physical remand when he will be produced before a judicial magistrate on Jan 15," he said. The judge, however, granted bail to Lakhvi.

"I will fight the detention of my client in the Islamabad High Court. There has been no justification to detain Lakhvi after the trial court and a lower court granted him bail in Mumbai attack case and abduction case, respectively," Abbasi said.

Lakhvi has been detained at Adiala Prison for the last five years or so. He will be produced before the magistrate on January 15. Lakhvi and six others - Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum - have been charged with planning and executing the Mumbai attacks in November, 2008 that 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.

OneIndia News
(With agency inputs)