Zaki-ur-Rehman-Lakhvi challenges detention under abduction case in Pakistan

Mumbai attack mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, who has been remanded to police custody in an abduction case, challenged his detention on Wednesday on charges of kidnapping in a Pakistani court.

"Lakhvi has filed an application in the district and sessions court against implicating him in a false and fabricated FIR," Lakhvi's counsel Raja Rizwan Abbasi said.

"The FIR has (a) ghost character (abducted person) as well as carrying a concocted story to keep my client behind the bars," he said, alleging that the government had done so under India's pressure.

Just before Lakhvi was to be released on Tuesday, he was arrested on charges of kidnapping a man named Muhammad Anwar Khan, an Afghan national. In a FIR registered on Monday at a police station in Islamabad, Anwar said he was kidnapped by Lakhvi six years ago. The police also got Lakhvi's two-day physical remand from a judicial magistrate.

Lakhvi, 54, was granted bail on December 18 in the Mumbai attack case but was detained under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO). He challenged his detention under MPO in the Islamabad High Court which on Monday suspended the government order, evoking a strong reaction from India. Lakhvi is being kept under high security at the Shalimar Police Station here. He will be produced before the court on Thursday in the kidnapping case.

A Pakistan interior ministry official said that the police would seek his further physical remand. "The police will seek extension to his remand for at least one week," the official said.