The Pakistani government plans to challenge the granting of bail to the man accused of masterminding the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, a law enforcement official said Friday.
Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a top leader of the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, was granted bail by an anti-terrorism court in Islamabad on Thursday, prompting dismay from Indian officials.
Lakhvi is one of seven people being prosecuted in the Pakistani anti-terrorism court over the terror attacks in Mumbai that left more than 160 people dead in November 2008.
In the attacks, heavily armed men stormed landmark buildings around Mumbai, including high-end hotels, the city’s historic Victoria Terminus train station and the Jewish cultural center Chabad House.
A lawyer for Lakhvi, Rizwan Abbassi, said his client was granted bail because of “deficient” evidence.
“The court always sees and decides the case on the basis of evidence,” he said in a report by Times Now, an Indian TV station.
But Azhar Chaudhary, an official with Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency, said authorities intend to challenge the bail decision.
Many in India, where deep anger remains over the attack, have strongly criticized the Pakistani court’s move.
“It is very disappointing that the accused of the Mumbai attacks has been granted bail,” said Rajnath Singh, India’s Home Minister on Thursday.
India’s external-affairs spokesman Syed Akbaruddin complained about the “glacial pace” of the proceedings against the Mumbai suspects in Pakistan.
“The move to grant bail to Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi yesterday has taken this saga to another level,” he said, adding that India has communicated its “strong concerns” on the matter through diplomatic channels.
Ujjwal Nikam, the Indian public prosecutor for the 2008 Mumbai-attack trial insisted Indian prosecutors dealing with the Mumbai trial had given what he called ample evidence to Pakistani authorities against Lakhvi.
“It is a mockery of justice,” Nikam said of the bail decision.
India executed the last surviving gunman from the Mumbai attacks in 2012. The other attackers were all killed during the three days of violence in the city in 2008.