ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In a move that drew furious condemnation from India, a Pakistani high court released on bail on Friday a militant commander accused of orchestrating the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed more than 160 people.

The commander, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, and six other members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group have been on trial since 2009 at a high-security jail in Rawalpindi, just south of Islamabad, on charges of participating in the Mumbai operation.

But the trial has been conducted largely in secrecy, and its halting pace has given rise to speculation that its progress is being influenced by the vagaries of wider tensions between Pakistan and India.

Those tensions have been particularly high since last spring and summer, when Narendra Modi, a right-wing Hindu leader, became prime minister of India and there was a marked escalation in violent clashes between the two countries’ troops near the Line of Control in the disputed region of Kashmir.