Markaz Taiba, Muridke was NOT a mosque. It is a very well known terror hideout, even among international journalists. It was used to train Ajmal Kasab and David Headley for the 2008 attacks, which he confessed to in 2008. Osama Bin Laden himself paid for its construction. It was founded in 1988 and Lakhvi himself frequented it. How utterly ignorant you people are. Do some more research. Most Indians remember Kasab’s confession.

In this book I argue that Lashkar’s evolution is informed by two defining dualities: the first is its identity as a militant outfit and as a missionary organization committed to promoting its interpretation of Ahl-e-Hadith Islam

In 1984, Lakhvi broke away and formed a small Ahl-e-Hadith group of his own. A year later, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Zafar Iqbal, two teachers at the University of Engineering and Technology (Lahore) Pakistan, formed Jamaat-ul-Dawa [Organization for Preaching, or JuD]. This was a small missionary order primarily dedicated to preaching the tenets of Ahl-e-Hadith Islam as interpreted by its founders. Soon after, the two joined forces.

(Source-Storming the World: the Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Tankel Stephen)

Born in 1987 in Faridkot, Pakistan, Kasab dropped out of school thirteen years later to work as a laborer in his hometown. Within a year he left for Lahore, where he again worked as laborer for nearly five years. After quarreling with his father, Kasab struck out on his own. He landed a job in Jhelum city, north of Lahore. Unhappy with his meager income, Kasab quit in November 2007 and moved to Rawalpindi with a colleague named Muzaffar. A month later Kasab came upon Lashkar members collecting animal hides in the name of Jamaat-ul-Dawa during Eid al-Adha. He and Muzaffar obtained Lashkar’s office address and showed up declaring their desire to wage violent jihad. After giving their names, addresses and other details they were told to return the following morning with extra clothes, whereupon the two received 200 rupees for the bus trip to ‘a place called Marqas Taiyyaaba, Muridke’ where ‘LeT is having their training camp.’ Upon arrival there the two were promptly enrolled in Lashkar’s Daura-e-Suffa training.

(Same source. The book was published in 2011. Daura-e-Suffa refers to religious training, according to the LeT’s interpretation of the Hadiths and the Quran.)

The article you linked mentioned the seminary and classes. This is what it is.

Life after the ban was not as easy for any of Pakistan’s jihadi groups as it had been beforehand. Fundraising, recruitment and training were restricted to different degrees for different outfits, but none got off scot-free if only because these activities could no longer be carried out as overtly as hitherto. However, the Musharraf regime had no plans to dismantle all of Pakistan’s proxies. As part of what has become known as Pakistan’s ‘double game,’ militant outfits were categorized as ‘good jihadis’ that were covertly supported for continued use as proxies and ‘bad jihadis’ that were cracked down on more harshly. This was not a purely binomial division. Assessments and treatment existed on a spectrum, meaning some ‘good jihadis’ were treated better than others and some ‘bad jihadis’ cracked down on more harshly. Categorization was based on the threats that a group posed to the state and the utility it continued to offer.

ibid. Now look up ‘good Taliban’ and ‘bad Taliban’. The Pakistani establishment still follows the same protocol for terrorists today; kill the ones that are harmful to its interests, or if pressured enough, US interests and let the ones that act as a useful proxy against India to operate freely. Look up Sajad Mir, and how Pakistan denied he existed for many years, then said he died long ago, until he was suddenly declared alive in 2022 and convicted. A French anti-terrorism expert, Jean-Louis Bruguière, in his Some Things that I Wasn’t Able to Say has stated that the Pakistani army trained the militants in the LeT camps based on his interrogation of Sajad Mir’s French companion, Willy Brigiditte.

Lashkar was the most reliable in Islamabad’s eyes and fared the best. To begin with, it benefited from stronger connections to Pakistan’s army, ISI and civil service than other groups. Several journalists pointed out that, in addition to having recruited retired army and ISI officers into its ranks, Lashkar members had family in the middle ranks of the army and various civilian security agencies. Thus, the group was better connected than any other militant out-fit.4 It also had no strong allegiance to the Taliban and therefore was viewed as less of a threat to the state. According to one former senior official in the Intelligence Bureau, the government ordered Lashkar not to side with the Taliban in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.When it complied, this reinforced the perception that it was an obedient and reliable proxy. Finally, Lashkar’s leadership shared Musharraf’s India-centric priorities and the group remained Pakistan’s most potent proxy. One Western diplomat stationed in Pakistan went so far as to suggest the Musharraf regime would have sacrificed the other outfits if necessary in order to protect Lashkar because of its utility against India.

ibid.

To quote my other comment on c/India:

During the brutal Mumbai attacks, Pakistan denied all charges of complicity. India did everything ‘right’ - it gave a fair trial to Kasab, shared evidence with the international community and urged Pakistan to crack down on terror camps in their country. But what did Pakistan do? It denied that Kasab was a Pakistani national, denied that they had any such camps, banned journalists from going to Kasab’s village. It took years of investigation and coordination with the intelligence agencies of other countries to prove that ISI officials (which worked with the CIA during the Soviet-Afghan War) were complicit. David Headley (thanks America, you never fail to disappoint when creating terrorists) and Tahawuur Rana, masterminds of the attacks, provided the necessary clues.

Pre-26/11 India and Pakistan had the warmest relations they’d had in years. Pakistan’s denial, and subsequent investigation, other terrorist attacks after this (there were many) by the same organisations changed everything.

Sajad Mir, a man claimed by the Pakistani government to be a fantasy cooked up by India, was found to be a real person, one of the planners of the Mumbai attacks. The efforts of international journalists (https://www.propublica.org/article/the-man-behind-mumbai) proved his role. In fact, he had even planned a terrorist attack in Australia, and his fellow conspirator, a French terrorist whose name I don’t recall right now revealed that he was well known in the Pakistani Army and freely went into Pakistani Army bases which civilians typically aren’t allowed to go into, let alone know their location or members. This was when he and his buddy were training Lashker-e-Taiba. Is it so surprising that this genocidal army wouldn’t do anything about known terrorists, then?

Pakistan’s army committed a genocide in living memory - the genocide of Bangladeshis. This is the state you’re defending, and the groups that have spawned from it, which provides cover to the worst scum if it serves their purposes.

Anyway, onto Mir. Mir was declared dead after it was found that he wasn’t so imaginary after all. Pakistan shifted the goalposts - he died long ago, we don’t have to hand him over to India. Then, magically in 2022, he was brought back from the dead and convicted. A French magistrate said that he was a member of the Pakistani Army. He was the son of an officer, after all. Why did Pakistan lie and protect such men? Why did Pakistan’s ISI destroy key evidence in the trial? Why did the state withhold evidence if it has nothing to do with terrorists?

Why are Lakhvi and Hafiz Saeed still chilling in Pakistan? They both have an Interpol red notice. Why is he roaming freely in the country and giving inflammatory speeches? Saeed said his party would be contesting elections in 2018. This is an anti-terrorist state? Yesterday, Masood Azhar said that his mosque and seminary were hit by the missile – why does he have a seminary and mosque to radicalise poor young men of Pakistan? Why does Pakistan take absolutely no action on terrorists except when said terrorists harm the army’s interests?

To claim that the Pakistani state/army (the state has no real power; no PM has served their full term in Pakistan) and the terror apparatus are somehow separate entities flies in the face of evidence.

This same government released Lakhvi in 2015 on bail, who was one of the founders of LeT. 7 years after the attacks. He was released, and is apparently given 3 five-year sentences. Why such leniency, and such convenient disappearance and reappearence?

If you had been following the research after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, you wouldn’t be saying this. Also, Pakistan directly targeted the Golden Temple, the most famous Gurudwara in India. Funny how you didn’'t mention that. Honestly, read. Look up C. Christine Fair, and read her work about LeT. It wasn’t religiously motivated, it was against known terror bases. There is a list. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/operation-sindoor-full-list-of-terrorist-camps-in-pakistan-pojk-targeted-by-indian-strikes/article69547986.ece with details about who was trained there, which attacks were carried out from there and when. You are literally years behind on the information–2008 and subsequent investigations have revealed quite a lot about LeT’s activities there.

Also, the Pakistan Army just held a funeral for a UN designed terrorist there. At the innocent ‘mosque.’ While the Pakistan army continues shelling across Jammu, targeting schools, houses and civilian infrastructure, killing more civilians than armymen.