Pakistani police on Sunday ended the house arrest of militant leader Maulana Masood Azhar, wanted in India on charges of terrorism, police officials said.
Police were removed from the house of Azhar, leader of the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammad, on a court order, they said.
Azhar was under house arrest since December 2001 in the Pakistani city of Bahawalpur, 500 km south of the capital, Islamabad.
"Police was removed from his house today," a police officer in Bahawalpur told Reuters by telephone.
A Pakistani court had ordered his release on December 14, but the order was implemented only on Sunday, his father Ustad Allah Baksh told Reuters by telephone.
"It is a day of freedom for us. A day of freedom for me and a day of freedom for my son," said Baksh, a retired government school teacher.
Azhar was one of three Muslim militants released by India in 1999 in exchange for the freedom of passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines flight.
Soon after his release, Azhar formed Jaish-e-Mohammad, which is a key guerrilla group fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
banned Jaish-e-Mohammad and several other Islamic groups early this year
as part of a campaign to stem Islamic militancy in Pakistan.