The suspected planner of last month's attack by gunmen on Mumbai was arrested by Pakistani security forces in a raid on a militant camp, an official with a charity linked to the militant group said today.
The Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was among four men taken into custody following a raid on a camp yesterday used by Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters outside Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
Pakistani intelligence officers said six men have been arrested, but gave no names, and there has been no official confirmation of the raid. Lakhvi, one of Lashkar's operations chiefs, was named as a ringleader in the Mumbai plot by the lone surviving gunmen captured in India, according to Indian officials.
The raid on the camp began yesterday afternoon.
India has demanded Pakistan take swift action over what it says is the latest anti-India militant attack emanating from Pakistan. No comment on the raid was immediately available from Indian officials.
At least 171 people were killed during the three-day assault last month across Mumbai, India's financial capital, which has imperilled the improving ties between the south Asian nuclear rivals.
Mumbai police have said the gunmen were controlled by the Pakistan-based LeT group blamed for earlier attacks including a 2001 assault on India's parliament that nearly sparked the two countries' fourth war since independence from Britain in 1947.
LeT was formed with the help of Pakistan's intelligence agencies to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, but analysts say it is now part of a global Islamist militant scene. They say it is linked to al-Qaeda.
Reuters