Islamabad: The Pakistan government has arrested terrorist Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhv, the mastermind of the Mumbai attack and a leader of armed group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
The arrest is in relation to “terrorism financing”, the official said on Saturday, and not a specific attack.
“Proscribed organisation LeT leader Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi arrested on charges of terrorism financing,” a spokesman for the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Pakistan’s Punjab province said.
The suspect is said to have been running a medical dispensary to collect and disburse funds for “terrorism”, the spokesman said.
A sanctions committee of the United Nations Security Council says Lakhvi is LeT’s chief of operations and accuses him of being active in a number of other regions and countries, including Chechnya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Indian authorities said the lone surviving attacker involved in the 2008 Mumbai siege, in which 166 people were killed, had told interrogators before his execution that the assailants were in touch with Lakhvi.
India has long called on Pakistan to bring Lakhvi to trial, but Islamabad says New Delhi has not provided concrete evidence to try the LeT leader. He was first arrested in 2008 but was later released on bail.
