Pakistan detains Lakhvi again before his release
The development came a day after a court cancelled an earlier order
under which Lakhvi was detained for three months.
Pakistan on Saturday detained Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the 2008 Mumbai
attack mastermind, for 30 more days under a public security order before
he could be released from jail following a court directive to set him
free, which evoked a strong protest from India.
“The Punjab government today issued the order of Lakhvi’s detention
under Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) for a period of 30 days. He will
remain
detained at the Adiala Jail where he is currently under custody in
the Mumbai attack case,” a Home Department official of the Punjab
government told PTI.
An “outraged” India had on Friday summoned Pakistan High Commissioner
Abdul Basit in New Delhi to lodge a strong protest against the Islamabad
High
Court order to release the LeT operations commander Lakhvi and said
freeing him will pose a threat which “cannot be ignored".
The Home Department official said the detention order of 55-year-old
Lakhvi
had been issued on the request of the Interior Ministry. Lakhvi’s
lawyer, Raja Rizwan Abbasi, claimed the Punjab government had issued the
order in violation of Pakistan’s Constitution.
“The Punjab government has in fact committed a contempt of court by
detaining Mr Lakhvi under MPO which was twice suspended by the IHC,” he
said, adding that he would challenge this “illegal” order in the high
court on Monday.
“The Punjab government has entered in the MPO controversy to try to
make the matter more complex legally,” Abbasi said and expressed hope
that the High Court would set aside the Punjab government’s order on the
first hearing.
The Adiala Jail authorities in Rawalpindi yesterday refused to
release Lakhvi merely on the court’s order they received through fax
from his counsel and asked him to produce the certified copy of the
order for his release.
“Today we were to produce a certified copy of the court’s order to
the jail administration for my client’s release before the Punjab
government intervened and detained him under an illegal order,” Abbasi
said.
The IHC judge, Noorul Haq Qureshi, yesterday suspended the
government’s
detention order of Lakhvi for the second time and ordered his
immediate release.
“Since the government could not produce any solid evidence against
the detention of Lakhvi under Maintenance of Public Order there has been
no legal ground to detain him any more under that law. Lakhvi should be
released immediately if he is not required in any other criminal case,”
a senior lawyer associated with the case quoted the court’s order as
saying.
- The Hindu
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