Mumbai train bombers convicted

In India, 12 men have been convicted for their part in the co-ordinated bombings of Mumbai commuter trains in 2006 that killed 189 people and injured more than 800. One man was acquitted. Sentencing is due tomorrow.

The seven bombs went off during a 15 minute spell, and appeared to have targeted first class compartments as people were going home from jobs in the city’s financial district. Explosives were packed into pressure cookers, then put in bags.

Prosecutors said the attack was planned by Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI, and carried out by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba with help from the Students' Islamic Movement of India, a banned Indian group. Pakistan has rejected the allegations.

Mumbai has been hit by a number of terrorist attacks. In 2013, bombs killed 257 people, and bombers also struck in 2003 and 2011, killing a total of 70, while in 2008, gunmen attacked a number of places in the city, killing 165.

'Homeland' comes true! How Pakistan handles top terror suspects

It sounds like a plot line out of Homeland. One of the main suspects alleged to be behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008 which killed more than 160 people, is said to be living a life of luxury in a Pakistan prison, with internet and mobile phone access, and dozens of visitors popping in and out every day, without anyone bothering to check who they are.

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi is being held with six of his comrades at the Adyala Jail in Rawalpindi. After being named by Indian officials, he was arrested at what was said to be a training camp for the militant, some would say terrorist, group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In 2014, after doubts were raised over the Indian evidence, he was released on bail – embarrassingly, barely a day after the worst terrorist outrage in Pakistan’s history when Islamic fanatics murdered 145 people, including 132 children, at a school in Peshawar. The Pakistan military and civilian authorities had responded by calling for a crackdown on ‘all shades of terrorism’.

India protested, while the US and China are also said to have put on pressure, and the Pakistan government detained Lakhvi again under the Maintenance of Public Order law. But if the authorities believe he is a threat, the ‘anything goes’ prison regime seems an odd way of trying to protect Pakistanis.