JOIN USIndia was stunned after key 26/11 plotter Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was granted bail by a court in Pakistan on Thursday.
The decision belied New Delhi’s expectation that Islamabad might change its approach to terrorism after losing 132 children to the menace on its own territory just two days ago.
India blamed laxity on the part of prosecution lawyers appointed by the Pakistan government for the bail granted to Lakhvi.
The chief of operations of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) had not only planned the November 26-28, 2008, carnage in Mumbai, but was also involved in terrorist activities in West, Central and South-East Asian countries.
New Delhi called upon Islamabad to move a higher court and appeal against the order to release the incarcerated terror operative on bail.
“There might be some laxity on the part of the Pakistan government somewhere, or it could be due to some other reasons,” Home Minister Rajnath Singh told journalists shortly after the Anti-Terrorism Court in Islamabad granted bail to Lakhvi.
New Delhi said the decision would reassure terrorists that they could get away after committing heinous crimes.
Though an intense diplomatic campaign by New Delhi prompted Islamabad to put the plotters behind bars, the trial proceeded at a snail’s pace over the past six years.
Though Lakhvi and other LeT commanders remained at Adiala Jail in Pakistan, the tardy progress of the trial emerged as an irritant and remained so in New Delhi’s complex ties with Islamabad.
“We cannot accept that Lakhvi, a person designated as an international terrorist by the UNSC, is being released on bail,” Syed Akbaruddin, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said in New Delhi.
“This comes just two days after one of the most dastardly terrorist attacks against a school in Peshawar, where over a hundred children were systematically butchered. The grant of bail to Lakhvi will serve as a reassurance to terrorists,” said Akbaruddin.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar told journalists that the grant of bail was incorrect, even as he noted that India had shown maturity and stood by Pakistan in the aftermath of the attack in Peshawar.