India to urge Pakistan to arrest alleged Mumbai mastermind

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will urge Pakistan to arrest a key Islamist militant leader for his role in the Mumbai attacks, a day after an arrest warrant was issued against the raid's alleged mastermind, an official said on Wednesday.

An Indian court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants against 22 Pakistanis, including Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, for their role in the conspiracy that led to the Mumbai attacks last November, in which 175 people were killed.

A month after the November 26 attacks, Pakistani authorities put Saeed under house arrest after a U.N. Security Council committee added him and the Islamist charity he heads to a list of people and organisations linked to al Qaeda or the Taliban.

But a Pakistani court ordered his release earlier this month due to lack of evidence, angering India, who said Islamabad had enough evidence to put Saeed behind bars again.

"The issuing of the arrest warrant provides Pakistan an opportunity to arrest Saeed again," Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told Reuters from Mumbai.

"We will urge Interpol to execute the arrest warrants and Pakistani police to act on it," he said by telephone.

He is one of 38 people charged by India as key planners of the attacks.

The Mumbai attacks renewed tension between the nuclear rivals and New Delhi "paused" a slow-moving peace process and demanded Islamabad "dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism."

India also gave Pakistan a dossier of information shortly after the attack and followed it up with what it said was more evidence that Pakistan could use to prosecute the guilty.