As Pakistan tries to underscore its seriousness about tracking down those involved in last month’s Mumbai attacks, the Defense Ministry has announced they have placed Jaish-e Mohammed founder Masood Azhar under house arrest.
Azhar was one of the three major suspects India requested Pakistan to hand over last week, and the only one who was actually a Pakistani national. He was placed under house arrest by Pakistan previously in connection with the 2001 attack on India’s Parliament, though he was never actually charged in the attack.
US officials seemed skeptical of the announcement, with one saying “there have been instances in the past where the Pakistanis arrested extremists after terrorist attacks on India but released them several months later, after the international pressure eased up.”
Likely to add to the skepticism, Pakistani Information Minister Sherry Rehman later insisted that the reports of Azhar’s detention were untrue.