A court in Pakistan on Friday ordered the release of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks in India, calling his detention illegal.
Lakhvi, a top leader of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, was not present at Friday’s proceeding at Islamabad High Court.
The terror attacks in India left more than 160 people dead in November 2008.
In the attacks, heavily armed men stormed landmark buildings around Mumbai, including luxury hotels, the city’s historic Victoria Terminus train station and a Jewish cultural center.
On Friday, India summoned the Pakistan high commissioner “to convey our strong feelings about (the) Lakhvi verdict,” said India’s external affairs spokesman Syed Akbaruddin.
Last year, an anti-terrorism court granted Lakhvi bail, a decision the Pakistani government had said it would challenge.
Many in India are still angry over the attacks and had criticized the bail decision.
“It is very disappointing that the accused of the Mumbai attacks has been granted bail,” the nation’s home minister, Rajnath Singh, said in December.
India executed the last surviving gunman from the attacks in 2012. Other suspects were all killed during the series of attacks, which went on for three days.