In this Nov 27, 2008 photo, flames gush out of The Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai. Warrants have been issued to Pakistani nationals accused of planning last year's Mumbai attacks. -- PHOTO: AFP
MUMBAI (India) - AN INDIAN court issued arrest warrants on Tuesday for 22 Pakistani nationals accused of masterminding last year's deadly Mumbai terrorist attacks, including the founder of an Islamist militant group recently freed by a Pakistani court.
EXTRADITION DISPUTE
THE Indian's court's issuance of arrest warrants on Tuesday had been expected, since New Delhi has long identified the 22 suspects as terrorists.
Still, the demand for extradition - which Pakistan is unlikely to meet - emphasized the animosity that has smouldered between the neighbours since teams of gunmen rampaged through Mumbai last November.
PAKISTAN banned Lashkar in 2002 during a crackdown on militant groups that followed the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, under pressure from Washington, which considers it a terrorist group.
Hafiz Mohammed Saeed is currently chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an organization he says is a charity to help impoverished and disaster-stricken Pakistanis.
An Indian prosecutor demanded that Islamabad extradite all the suspects, though Pakistan has vowed that it will not transfer any Mumbai suspects to longtime rival India, saying instead it will try them in its own courts.
The warrants were issued in response to a prosecutors' motion in the ongoing trial of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving suspected gunman in last year's attacks that left some 166 dead in a three-day siege.
Among those sought for arrest were Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, founder of the Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba - which India blames for the launching attacks - and Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah, two leaders of the group.
Pakistan arrested all three in December after Indian diplomats provided a dossier of evidence in a rare sharing of intelligence between the nuclear-armed rivals, who have fought three wars since independence.
However, a court in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore earlier this month freed Saeed, a hard-line Islamic cleric, saying there was no evidence against him. Indian officials heatedly condemned the move. -- AP
