A Pakistani court freed a top leader of a banned Kashmiri militant group from house arrest today and rival India said that was proof Pakistan continued to support terrorism.
Mr Maulana Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Mohammad, a group Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf outlawed a year ago for fighting an insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir, was placed under house arrest in the Punjabi city of Bahawalpur in December, 2001.
Under a Public Safety Act, Mr Azhar's arrest has come up for review by a special judicial commission every three months.
Today, a three-member review board of the Lahore High Court rejected a request by the Punjab Home Department to extend Mr Azhar's detention for another three months, saying there were no grounds to keep him in detention any further.
Mr Azhar was one of three men released from an Indian prison in a barter deal with New Delhi after an Indian airliner was hijacked in late 1999 and flown to Kabul, where the then-ruling Taliban government helped to negotiate a settlement. "It is quite clear that investigation and charges against Masood Azhar have not been pursued by Pakistani authorities with any seriousness," an Indian external affairs ministry spokesman said in a statement.
Mr Azhar was allowed contact with his cadres when in prison, later conveniently detained at home while his family received money from Pakistan authorities, it said.
"It is quite clear that Pakistan is continuing with the policy of terrorism as an instrument of its state policy, in violation of international law, and its own publicly declared commitments".
India blames Pakistan for allowing Pakistan-based militant groups to cross into Indian-ruled Kashmir to fight an insurgency there that has claimed more than 35,000 lives since 1989.