Pak court adjourns hearing of Mumbai attack case till May 6

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court holding the trial of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and six other accused in the 2008 Mumbai attack case on Thursday adjourned the hearing till May 6 as the Islamabad High Court again failed to return the case record.

Lahore: A Pakistani anti-terrorism court holding the trial of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and six other accused in the 2008 Mumbai attack case on Thursday adjourned the hearing till May 6 as the Islamabad High Court again failed to return the case record.

The judge of the Anti-Terrorism Court Islamabad held the hearing at the Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi, where six accused are lodged.

The judge adjourned the hearing till May 6 when he was told by the court staff that the record of the case could not be retrieved from the Islamabad High Court.

Prosecution chief Chaudhry Azhar told the trial court that it had also written a letter to the registrar of IHC regarding submitting the record to the ATC.

The Mumbai case record was transferred to the IHC in the first week of January when the federal government challenged the bail to LeT operations commander Lakhvi.

The Mumbai case hearings virtually could not be held after the trial court granted bail to Lakhvi on December 14, 2014.

A court official told a news agency after the hearing that the IHC had given a two-month deadline to the trial court to conclude the Mumbai terror attack case.

"But the IHC is not ensuring return of the Mumbai case record to the trial court which is surprising for everyone associated with the case. Two weeks of the two-month deadline has already passed by. In such circumstances the trial court may not be able to meet the deadline," the official said.

On April 13, a division bench of IHC headed by Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi gave the two-month deadline to the trial court to conclude the Mumbai case against LeT operations commander Lakhvi and six others.

The judge warned that the court would cancel the bail to Lakhvi if the case proceedings were delayed because of his lawyers.

On April 10, Adiala Jail Rawalpindi released Lakhvi after the Lahore High Court suspended his detention under a public security act.

Justice Muhammad Anwarul Haq of the Lahore High Court on April 9 had suspended the Punjab government's order to detain Lakhvi under Maintenance of Public Order as it failed to present "sensitive evidence" against him.

The Punjab government has challenged the LHC decision to suspend its order to detain him under the security act in the Supreme Court.

Lakhvi, Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum have been charged with planning and executing the Mumbai attack in November, 2008 that left 166 people dead. The case has been pending since 2009.

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