NEW DELHI: The Indian Supreme Court on Thursday allowed ailing Pakistani microbiologist Mohammad Khalil Chishti to travel to his home country on humanitarian grounds, DawnNews reported.

The Indian apex court has directed Chishti to deposit half a million rupees as a security.

Dr Chishti is Pakistan’s first virologist. He had gone to India in 1992 to see his ailing mother where he was implicated in a murder case. After an 18-year-long trial, the octogenarian professor was awarded life imprisonment and sent to the Ajmer jail in January last year.

President Asif Ali Zardari had written a letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last month, seeking Chisti’s release and repatriation to Pakistan on humanitarian grounds.

Following high-level diplomatic talks between the two countries, Chishti was released from the Ajmer central jail.

After Chishti’s release, Manmohan’s government argued in the apex court that it was not in favour of his repatriation to Pakistan saying that in that case Chisti might not return for future hearings in the Indian apex court.