New Delhi: India today summoned the Pakistani envoy to convey its outrage after a court ordered the release of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the man accused of plotting the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
Hours after the Islamabad High Court ruled that Lakhvi's detention is illegal, Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit was summoned by the foreign ministry.
"He may have been granted bail but as you know the trial continues, we are all working to complete the trial. Let the judicial process take its course," Mr Basit said after the meeting.
India said it is Pakistan's responsibility to take all legal measures to ensure that he doesn't come out of jail.
"If such a person, who is also a designated international terrorist by the United Nations, is released it will pose a threat that cannot be ignored," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said.
Later in the evening, Pakistan summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh and conveyed to him that India is hyping the issue. Pakistan also said that India shouldn't interfere in the judicial process.
Lakhvi, a top commander of the banned terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, has been in jail since 2009 over the attacks in Mumbai a year before, in which 166 people were killed.
India had summoned the Pakistani envoy in December when Lakhvi was granted bail by an anti-terror court just two days after a terror attack on a school in Peshawar in which over 140 people, mostly students, were killed.
The court had said that it did not have evidence to prove his involvement in the worst-ever terror attack in India.
"The overwhelming evidence against Lakhvi has not been presented properly before court by Pakistani agencies," the Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said today.
Lakhvi is one of seven people on trial in Pakistan for the siege of Mumbai. India has repeatedly warned Pakistan that the glacial pace of the trial is unacceptable and undermines Pakistan's stated position on checking terrorism.
Indian investigators have submitted voice samples and other evidence that reveal Lakhvi talking on satellite phones to the 10 terrorists who sailed into Mumbai and attacked its most famous landmarks.