India should respect Pak judgment on Saeed: Malik

The Pakistan government honours the Supreme Court's decision upholding the release from house arrest of Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed and Indian authorities should accord 'similar respect to the verdicts of Pakistani courts,' Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Tuesday.

Malik made the remarks while talking to reporters a day after the apex court upheld the Lahore High Court's decision to free Saeed from house arrest and dismissed appeals filed by the federal and Punjab governments challenging his release.

The interior minister said Indian authorities should show the same respect for verdicts of Pakistani courts as that shown by the Pakistan government.

"We had also honoured the Indian court's decision against Ajmal Kasab," Malik said, referring to the death sentence recently awarded by an Indian court to the Pakistani national for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

India on Tuesday expressed disappointment over Pakistan Supreme Court's decision to uphold the release of Saeed, whom New Delhi has blamed for masterminding the Mumbai attacks.

Indian officials have said they have provided sufficient evidence against Saeed to Pakistani authorities. Malik also called for a joint struggle against terrorism by Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

He said Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American arrested by the United States for a botched car bomb attack in New York, had links in the restive South Waziristan tribal region. An investigation into these links is underway though no one has so far been arrested, he said.

"Faisal Shahzad had links in South Waziristan and his accounts are the focus of our investigation," Malik said. Media reports, however, said Pakistani authorities had detained 11 suspects, including an army major, for alleged links with Shahzad.