Detained JuD leader shifted to Lahore

Senior Jamaat-ud-Dawah leader Nazir Ahmed, who has been under house arrest since early December in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, has been shifted from Rawalpindi to Lahore.

Ahmed, a close aide of Jamaat chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, was shifted by the Pakistani law enforcement authorities from Rawalpindi to Lahore, media reports said.

A retired colonel in the Pakistan army, Ahmed was detained along with over 50 militant leaders in December last year, when the government launched a crackdown on the Jamaat and its parent organisation, the outlawed Lashker-e-Tayiba, in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

Ahmed, who was under house arrest in Rawalpindi, was taken to Lahore under tight security on Monday, reports said. No further details were immediately available.

Ahmed was the head of the Jamaat unit in Rawalpindi.

Last week, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said that formal charges had been filed against nine suspects linked to the Mumbai attacks, and six of them are in the custody of Pakistani authorities.

He also acknowledged that part of the conspiracy behind the Mumbai attacks was hatched on Pakistani soil.