Islamabad, Nov. 25: An anti-terror court today formally charged the seven Mumbai attack suspects whom Pakistan has arrested, the order coming on the eve of the massacre’s anniversary and after almost five months of pre-trial hearing.

Sources told The Telegraph the charges related to murder, terrorism, abetting terrorism, conspiracy and cyber crime.

The court, conducting the trial at a Rawalpindi jail, declared 16 others as proclaimed offenders, including lone surviving gunman Ajmal Kasab who is in Indian custody, a PTI report said. It added that the judge rejected the bail plea of some of the accused.

The seven accused, taken into custody early this year, include top Lashkar-e-Toiba operative and alleged 26/11 planner Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi and four facilitators: Hammad Amin Sadiq, Mazhar Iqbal alias Abu Qama, Abdul Wajid alias Zarar Shah and Shahid Jamil.

The other two, Jamil Ahmad and Muhammad Younis Anjum, were arrested after a meeting in July between the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers in the Egyptian resort of Sharm-al-Sheikh.

“All the seven accused, including Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, were formally indicted today,” one of the defence lawyers, Shahbaz Rajput, said. He added that the accused had pleaded not guilty and that the evidence did not support the charges.

Rajput said the next hearing would take place on December 5 but refused to give further details “as the proceedings are in-camera and we are not supposed to share any information with the media”.

According to Pakistani investigations, Mazhar Iqbal was the 10 gunmen’s handler while Zarar was the facilitator and the expert who managed the computer network. Hammad Amin Sadiq allegedly facilitated the funds and arranged hideouts for the attackers, and Shahid Jamil is said to have trained the crew members of the Al-Hussaini and Al-Fouz, on which the attackers set sail from Karachi towards Mumbai.

New Delhi has repeatedly asked Pakistan to hand over alleged mastermind Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of the Lashkar and its front, the Jamat-ud-Dawa. Pakistan, however, has rejected all the Indian dossiers containing purported evidence of Saeed’s involvement.

Saeed was put under house arrest days after the Mumbai attacks but was released on the orders of Lahore High Court in June after the authorities failed to provide substantial evidence of his involvement in the carnage.

A foreign ministry official said India had sent a fresh dossier last week, which was being studied by foreign and interior ministry officials.