On the run for 7 years, 26/11 suspect held in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's anti-terror court handed over 2008 Mumbai terror attack suspect Sufiyan Zafar to the Federal Investigative Agency for three-day custody here on Friday for questioning. Zafar, from central Punjab, is accused of facilitating funds and equipment transfers to Mumbai attacker Ajmal Kasab and his associates.

Zafar was on the run for the last seven years and was arrested a day after Union home minister Rajnath Singh demanded the "strongest action" against perpetrators of the Mumbai and Pathankot attacks at a SAARC ministerial conference in Islamabad this month.

The six-year long investigations into 2008 Mumbai attacks, which claimed over 160 lives when 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists carried out coordinated shootings and bombings in multiple sites in India's financial capital, has not seen any major headway with trials of the suspects coming to a standstill five months ago.

However, last month, the Islamabad high court allowed the examination of Al-Fauz, a boat used by the suspects to reach India for carrying out the attack, sparking hopes for a faster judgment. Public prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar had filed a plea for the boat inspection, which was earlier rejected by the anti-terrorism court.

Following the order, the anti-terrorism court judge Sohail Ikram constituted a judicial commission to visit Karachi to inspect the boat and record statements of the witnesses. The commission will submit its report in the court within a week.

The key suspect in the case, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, went underground following his release on bail from jail a year ago. The bail pleas for other six suspects, Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum were rejected several times in the past.