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| Pakistani top militant in gov’t custody over attack in India | Pakistani top militant in gov’t custody over attack in India |
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| ISLAMABAD — The leader of an outlawed Pakistani militant group has been taken into “protective custody” amid a probe as to whether he is linked to a deadly attack earlier this month on an Indian air base, two security officials and a provincial minister said Friday. | |
| Seven Indian soldiers and all six attackers were killed in the Jan. 2 assault in Pathankot, close to India’s border with Pakistan. The incident sparked concerns it could derail a recently launched peace process to resolve decades-old disputes, including Kashmir. | |
| Though Pakistan denounced the attack and promised action against all those linked to it, India Thursday postponed a scheduled round of talks, due Friday as it evaluated actions taken by Islamabad against Pakistan-based insurgents whom it blames for the base attack. | |
| Indian investigators have said that phone intercepts suggest that the gunmen in the assault came from Pakistan. However, the United Jehad Council, an alliance of 13 Kashmir-based rebel groups, claimed it was behind the Pathankot attack. The group is believed to be based in Pakistan’s section of Kashmir. | |
| According to two security officials, the head of outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group, Maulana Masood Azhar, was put under custody this week. The officials did not elaborate and spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak to reporters. | |
| On Wednesday, Islamabad said it arrested several members of Jaish-e-Mohammad but Akhtar was not among those arrested. | |
| Rana Sanaullah, the minister for law in the eastern Punjab province, confirmed that Azhar was in the custody of the Counter-Terrorism Department but that so far no case against him has been registered, a requirement under Pakistani law that precedes an indictment. | |
| Commenting on Pakistan’s action on Akhtar, G. Parthasarthy, India’s former high commissioner to Pakistan, said that “what has happened is setting the process for custodial interrogation. It doesn’t amount to presumption of guilt or arrest.” | |
| Azhar was arrested by India in 1994, after crossing into Indian-part of the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is divided between Pakistan and India but is claimed by both in its entirety. | |
| He was freed along with two other militants as part of a demand by five hijackers behind the December 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines passenger plane that was taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan. All 178 passengers and 11 crew were on board were released in Afghanistan. | |
| Two others released with Azhar were Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, an Indian Kashmiri, and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a Pakistani-born British citizen who was later convicted over his role in the abduction and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. | |
| In 2000, Azhar arrived from Afghanistan to Pakistan where he has stayed since. In 2002, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf outlawed Azhar’s militant group as part of the global anti-terror campaign. | |
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| Associated Press Writer in New Delhi Ashok Sharma contributed to this story. | |
| Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |