Pakistani authorities have freed the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on bail, sources said Friday, a move that swiftly drew furious condemnation from India.
Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, accused over the terror siege that left 166 dead, was released late on Thursday, according to an official at Adiyala Prison in Rawalpindi, next to Islamabad, AFP reported.
India slammed the release as an “insult” to the victims of the three-day onslaught on its financial capital, blamed on the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
LeT’s charitable wing Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) confirmed Lakhvi’s release. The release comes after nearly four months of wrangling over Lakhvi’s detention, after a judge granted him bail in December, sparking an angry response from New Delhi.
The government slapped Lakhvi with a series of detention orders but judges repeatedly cancelled them.
On Thursday the Lahore High Court ordered his release, conditional on a two million rupee ($20,000) bond.
India has long seethed at Pakistan’s failure either to hand over or prosecute those accused of planning and organizing the violence.
Lakhvi and six other suspects have been charged in Pakistan but their cases have made virtually no progress in more than five years.
