'It's surprising that Saeed has been let off'

India on Monday reacted strongly to the Lahore High Court's order to dispose of the anti-terror case against Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind behind the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Reacting to the decision, Union External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said Pakistan must ensure the arrest of all 26/11 culprits. "It is surprising that Saeed has been let off by the Pakistan court. He was the brain behind the Mumbai blasts. Pakistan should conduct a probe on his role in the attacks," Krishna told a private news television channel.

Earlier in the day, the Lahore High Court had ordered the case against Saeed to be disposed off, saying the country's anti-terror laws did not apply to him.

Saeed's lawyer A K Dogar said the case against his client was weak as it lacked credible evidence. "There is no evidence against Saeed. My client was wrongly accused of terror," Dogar said. He added that all notions regarding Saeed's involvement in terror activities, and particularly in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, were false.

"He (Saeed) would be the last person to carry out a terror attack," Dogar said.  Dogar also said that he was convinced that there was a difference between the type of Islam the Taliban was espousing and what the Jamaat-ud-Daawa was promoting, adding that those who followed Islam with piety and humility, including the Taliban, would soon see the benefit of joining hands with the JuD and end their terrorist and insurgent ways.

Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik had also given an indication as to how the matter would proceed when he had claimed that there wasn't enough evidence against Saeed, and that Islamabad would not be dictated to by India in this regard.

In an interview to The Daily Times last week, Malik had blamed New Delhi for the delay into the 26/11 probe, and said that Pakistan has done enough to bring the perpetrators to justice. 

"Whatever we had committed with India, we have done it... in terms of bringing the accused to justice. We arrested the mastermind, it is another thing that they (India) are changing their statements," Malik said. 

"First the Indians were saying that Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi was the mastermind and then they started pointed fingers at Hafiz Saeed. It is an organized kind of campaign against Pakistan to counter and divert attention from Kashmir and the water issue," he added.

Pakistan had even rejected the sixth dossier received from India, saying that the contents provided in it were not enough to arrest or prosecute Saeed in a court of law and had asked New Delhi to provide more evidence in connection with the case.