Lahore: LeT operations commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind, on Friday walked free from a Pakistani jail after spending nearly six years in detention. Authorities in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi today released 55-year-old Lakhvi, a day after the Lahore High Court (LHC) suspended his detention under a security act.
India had strongly reacted to the court’s decision, saying it “eroded” the value of assurances repeatedly conveyed to it by Pakistan on cross-border terrorism. A member of Lakhvi’s legal team today submitted the LHC order to the jail authorities and subsequently they released him at 1.40 pm. Jamaat-ud-Dawa supporters were present outside the prison to receive Lakhvi. Some four to five cars reached outside the Adiala Jail at around 1 pm and as soon Lakhvi came out of the jail, he got into his car and left for his Islamabad residence. JuD spokesman Yahya Mujahid did not offer any comment on Lakhvi’s release when PTI contacted him.
“We have released Lakhvi after a member of his legal team presented the LHC order. There has been no direction from the government to either detain or release him,” a jail official told PTI. Yesterday LHC had suspended the Punjab government’s order to detain Lakhvi under a security act and ordered his immediate release.
Earlier in the day, the government’s legal team discussed several options to keep Lakhvi behind the bars. However, it could not offer any legal ground to further detain him. A government law officer earlier said it was difficult for the government to go for the option of detaining Lakhvi again under the Maintenance of Public Order which had been suspended twice by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) and Lahore High Court.
Lakhvi’s counsel Raja Rizwan Abbasi said, “The government was left with no other ‘legal option’ but to release his client after the LHC suspended his detention. Neither the government nor the Adiala Jail authorities could violate the court’s order this time,” he said. Lakhvi and six others have been charged with planning and executing the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people and wounding over 300.
Lakhvi, a close relative of LeT founder and JuD chief Hafiz Saeed, was arrested in December 2008 and was indicted along with the six others on November 25, 2009 in connection with the 26/11 attack case. The trial has been underway since 2009.
“Neither the federal nor Punjab governments can issue another detention order of Mr Lakhvi after the verdicts of the Islamabad High Court and Lahore High Court against his detention as it would be a contempt of court,” Abbasi said.
The government, he said, also could not arrest his client in any other case as the IHC had already stopped it from doing so without bringing the matter to its notice. The government had arrested Lakhvi for the kidnapping of an Afghan national after the trial court granted him bail on December 14, 2014.
The court had granted him bail in it and directed the government not to register any other case against him without informing the court. “As the government failed to produce any substantial evidence against Lakhvi it has now no other reasons keep him behind the bars any more,” Abbasi said. Justice Muhammad Anwarul Haq of Lahore High Court had suspended the detention of Lakhvi under Maintenance of Public Order as the government failed to present “sensitive evidence” against him in the court.
The judge ordered Lakhvi, the petitioner, to submit two surety bonds worth Rs 1 million each for his release. The government’s counsel presented before the court record of the sensitive reports prepared by the intelligence agencies about the activities of the petitioner.
However, Lakhvi’s lawyers Abbasi told the court that the record presented by the government “was not a secret information and easily available on internet even”. The court also expressed dissatisfaction over the record and observed that the reasons cited by the government for the petitioner’s detention were not enough.
The law officer had submitted important information about Lakhvi but the court did not accept this and declared the evidence unsatisfactory. The Islamabad High Court on March 13 had suspended the government’s detention order for Lakhvi and ordered his immediate release.
The following day the Punjab government (DCO Okara) issued a detention order for Lakhvi for another 30 days under the Maintenance of Public Order, before he could be released by Adiala Jail Rawalpindi authorities. (PTI)
