Mani Shankar Aiyar, Hafiz Saeed spar on Pakistani TV

An angry Hafiz Saeed accused India of being insincere in its attempts to resolve issues with Pakistan, after Indian parliamentarian Mani Shankar Aiyar said the Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief did not want ties between the two nuclear-armed neighbours to improve.

The host of a Pakistani television news program broadcast on Thursday introduced Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, on a phone link while Aiyar was at the channel's Islamabad studio with another panellist.

Responding to a question from the host, Saeed, the founder of the militant organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), explained his opposition to the Pakistani administration's move to grant India the Most Favoured Nation-status for improved trade ties.

"Giving India MFN-status is not correct in any manner because there are already big problems that haven´t been resolved, including the Kashmir issue. At this moment, the dams being made by India will create a crisis in Pakistan," he claimed.

Saeed also claimed he had "never opposed talks" with India but the neighbouring country "has never seriously tried to resolve problems".

Aiyar, a former member of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's cabinet, responded to the charge by saying that Saeed was part of a "small group" that opposed better ties with India even as ordinary people wanted relations between the two countries to grow.

"There are some persons like Hafiz Saeed in our country who do not want things to move forward but thankfully the ordinary people want our ties to improve. We can improve our relations irrespective of what his (Saeed´s) opinion is," he said.

The former Indian minister added that India wanted to see Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the LeT's 26/11 Mumbai siege that left 166 people dead and over 300 wounded, in court, saying "We want him to be caught and taken to a terrorism court."

The JuD chief however claimed there was "no case" against him in Pakistan and that Pakistan´s high courts and Supreme Court had "cleared" him despite the "trumped up charges" presented by India.

Saeed, who was briefly detained after the UN Security Council declared the JuD a front for the LeT in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, has played a key role in recent months to assembled the Defa-e-Pakistan Council, a conglomerate of some 40 extremist and religious groups.

Pakistani-American David Headley, who had scouted the sites for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, has testified as part of a U.S. trial that Saeed motivated him for carrying out 'jihad', however, Pakistan claims that evidence against the LeT boss has been "vague and insufficient".