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Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhwi, accused of masterminding the Mumbai terror attacks, is among over 20 members of the group arrested by Pakistani security forces during a crackdown in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), officials said Monday (December 8).
The security forces, including the army, on Sunday launched a secretive crackdown on activists of the LeT and its front organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawah in PoK and other part of the country.
Helicopters were used in the operation in Muzaffarabad, the capital of PoK.
Ajmal Amir Iman, the lone terrorist captured by Indian authorities after the Mumbai attacks, had named Lakhwi as one of the Lashker commanders who had planned the terrorist strike.
Lakhwi was among more than 20 members of the LeT arrested in Muzaffarabad during a major army operation on a camp used by the outlawed group, the Dawn newspaper quoted sources as saying.
Other sources said late last night that a militant named Lakhwi had been taken into custody but it could not be independently confirmed if he was the same terrorist linked to the Mumbai attacks.
There was no immediate official word on the crackdown. Iman, the gunman captured in Mumbai, hails from a village in Okara district of Punjab.
Pakistan is under intense international pressure, including from the US, to take action against the LeT for its involvement in the Mumbai attacks. The Let was founded by militant ideologue Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who formed the Jamaat soon after the Lashker was banned in 2001.
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