Islamabad: Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani confirmed on Wednesday the arrest of two members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba jihadi group named by India as suspects in the conspiracy behind the attack on Mumbai last month.
Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah were being held for questioning, Gilani said in Multan city, in the central province of Punjab.
"They have been detained for investigation," he said.
Unnamed officials have said Lakhvi was arrested in a raid on a Lashkar camp in Pakistani Kashmir on Sunday, but there had been no confirmation from the government until now.
The Prime Minister said he had no up to date information on whether Maulana Masood Azhar, the leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammad group, had also been detained.
Pakistan has been advised by the United States to take swift, transparent action to cooperate with India in the investigation into the Mumbai attacks.
The United States has engaged in intensive diplomacy to stop tensions mounting between the nuclear armed neighbours and keep Pakistan focused on fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda threat on its border with Afghanistan.
Pakistan, however, has said anyone arrested and accused of involvement in the Mumbai attack will be tried in Pakistan.
Neither Azhar or his group have been mentioned as suspects in the attack on Mumbai that killed more than 200 people.
But Azhar is one of the most-wanted men in India, and was on a list of 20 terrorists and criminals New Delhi asked Pakistan to handover in the wake of the attacks to show its cooperation.
Representatives of the Azhar family and intelligence officials said on Tuesday that media reports that the jihadi leader was under house arrest were incorrect.
Confusion
But confusion over his status was sown by Pakistan's Defence Minister Chaudhry Mukhtar Ahmed in comments to the CNN-IBN, and a report in the Pakistani daily, the News. "About Masood Azhar, I don't think we had decided yesterday to pick him up but our President is determined that we remove all irritants and as a small irritant he has been picked up." Chaudhry told CNN-IBN.
When contacted about the remark, Chaudhry told Reuters he had not meant to give names of anyone arrested, but merely repeated names that had already appeared in the media.
Intelligence officials said that around a dozen people were arrested, mostly in the raid on a camp outside Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The News reported on Tuesday that there were also arrests made and records seized during raids on offices of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) charity in the Mansehra and Chakdra districts of North West Frontier Province.
The charity, which has thousands of followers, is widely regarded as a front for Lashkar-e-Toiba.
It has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, and India says it wants the United Nations to add JuD to its terrorist list.
Pakistan has kept it on a watchlist after banning both Lashkar and Jaish in 2001.
Lashkar and Jaish were blamed for an attack on Indian Parliament that brought the two South Asian countries to the brink of a fourth war.
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