For Lashkar-e-Taiba, Ajmal Kasab's conviction is nothing, but good news. At least that is what lawyers in Pakistan -- who defend the likes of Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi feel. "Kasab's conviction at Indian court means I have won the case of Lakhvi and other accused," a lawyer told rediff.com. Shahbaz Rajpoot, lawyer for Lakhvi and other accused said, "The verdict against Kasab has eased down my case, now there is no difficulty to prove my clients' innocence."
Lashkar-e-Taiba is still active and trying its best to increase the tension between India and Pakistan, a top United Nations official mandated to monitor the Security Council sanctions against Al-Qaeda, Taliban and other terrorist groups said on Wednesday.
India on Wednesday said it would press for access to Lashkar-e Taiba operative David Headley and his extradition and that his plea bargain with the US authorities is being examined in this context.
Fear has gripped border dwellers in the wake of the major terror strike by suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba militants in Kaili Mandi and they have demanded night security cover anticipating more such attacks by terrorists infiltrating into India from Pakistan. The border dwellers want protection by security forces during the night and intensive patrolling by army as a confidence building measure.
The anti-encroachment drive by Jammu and Kashmir administration intensified on Saturday as the land illegally occupied by 'influential persons' was retrieved at many places in the valley, officials said.
'Remembering the bravehearts and the innocent civilians who lost their lives'
Two persons suspected to be senior Pakistani army officers were named on Wednesday in the chargesheet filed by Mumbai police in connection with the 26/11 terror attacks.
The alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operative David Coleman Headley, arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for conspiring to carry out terror attacks in India, had stayed in a hotel in south Mumbai during his visit to the city, police said in Mumbai on Monday.
Britain today differed with India's view that Pakistan's official agencies could have had a role in Mumbai attacks even as it underlined that Islamabad has the "fundamental" responsibility to target the "roots" of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which was behind the terror strike.
The Air India Office in Chennai has received a letter warning attacks by 'suicide bombers' and threats to disrupt the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) beginning in the city on Thursday, police said.
Pakistan has appointed Saleem Raza, a former international banker, as central bank governor.
Influential American Senator John Kerry today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discussed the Mumbai terror attacks and the situation arising out of it.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh apologised on Thursday to the country for the government's inability to prevent the Mumbai attacks and vowed to gear up the security apparatus to prevent recurrence of such incidents besides building pressure on Pakistan to end the scourge.
The Jammu and Kashmir police on Sunday confirmed they had arrested a top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative from summer capital Srinagar in connection with the terror plot in Delhi.
Pakistan-based outlawed groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have supported Taliban and Al Qaida in destabilising the country, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said.
India said on Sunday that it is yet to get access to Lashkar-e Taiba operative David Headley but negotiations are underway on this issue and it is "satisfied" with the progress of discussions.
The recently unearthed terror module plotting bomb attacks on key installations in Tamil Nadu has no direct link with banned outfits such as the Students Islamic Movement of India and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the police said in Chennai on Thursday."This specific module has no direct links with such groups," Intelligence Inspector General Jaffer Sait said while replying to queries but declined to disclose further details as the investigation was going on.
The National Investigating Agency, probing various terror related cases in Kerala, on Tuesday took suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba operative T Nazir to two bus shelters in Kozhikode where he had allegedly masterminded the March 2006 blasts.
The minister asserted that India has taken major action against terrorism under the Modi government and referred to the surgical strikes carried out across the Line of Control (LoC) in 2016 and the Balakot air strike in 2019.
Casting doubts on Pakistan's "crackdown" on activists of Jamaat-Ud-Dawa (JuD) - a political arm of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Ansar Burney, a former Pakistani minister, on Thursday asked why "arrested" terrorists have not been produced in court.
A top Lashkar--Taiyba terrorist was in Karachi for the last three months to help organise the worst-ever terrorist attack in Mumbai, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing a Pakistani official in contact with the terror outfit. Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, was in Karachi for the last three months to help organise the terrorist attack in Mumbai, the report said.The Mumbai attackers also kept in contact with their handlers in Pakistan.
The police said the two hurled grenades and fired from automatic weapons forcing their entry into the headquarters of 144 CRPF battalion on Boulevard Road, where people were busy shopping on the eve of Eid.
This was for the second time in the past six years that Hussain, who also worked for an intelligence unit of the Pakistani army, was arrested while trying to infiltrate into this side from across the border.
Terrorism in India over the past half century has not crystallised around one central motivating ideology - it has by no means been uniquely Islamist.
The police and the security agencies hunting for a key Lashkar-e-Taiba operative with links in Kashmir, finally caught up with him in Hyderabad.
The Centre will provide a close proximity cover of elite "Black Cat" commandos from the National Security Guard (NSG) to Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in the wake of threat perception from Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Four persons, including two Army soldiers and two militants of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit, were killed and three security men wounded in a night-long gunfight that ended on Wednesday morning in South Kashmir.
Mohammad Afshaq had challenged the Delhi High Court judgement which upheld the death sentence awarded to him by a trial court.
Raising slogans against Lt Governor Manoj Sinha and the administration, the demonstrators, mostly government employees posted in the troubled valley and their kin, demanded that they be provided adequate security or be transferred to Jammu. The employees also threatened en masse resignation from their jobs.
Asserting that the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir has seen a "tremendous improvement and stabilisation" since August 2019, a top Army commander said the Union territory is regaining its past glory and peace through sacrifices of the security forces and people.
'If we have to restrict and fight terrorism, first and foremost, we have to ensure communal harmony in the country.'
The National Investigation Agency has arrested four terror associates during searches at 18 locations in Jammu and Kashmir following the registration of a case to unearth a conspiracy hatched by various terror groups to carry out attacks in the Union territory and other major cities, including New Delhi, an official said on Wednesday.
"The fight against impunity is critical to the larger pursuit of securing peace and justice. The Security Council must send an unambiguous and unequivocal message on this count," External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the 15-nation UN Security Council briefing on Ukraine 'Fight against impunity'.
"Had corona (COVID-19) not been there, the prime minister would have dedicated NATGRID to the country. I am hopeful that the prime minister will dedicate NATGRID to the country in some time," Union home minister Amit Shah said during the 51st Foundation Day event of the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) here on September 4.
Aijaz Ahmad, presently based in Afghanistan, is one of the chief recruiters of Islamic State Jammu and Kashmir.
Shah reviewed the party's preparations and strategy for the Lok Sabha election due next year.
"Whether it is in Afghanistan or against India, groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) continue to operate with both impunity and encouragement," India's external affairs minister S Jaishankar said
The govt said the onus is on Pakistan to create such a conducive atmosphere, including by taking "credible, verifiable and irreversible" action to not allow any territory under its control to be used for cross-border terrorism against India.
