ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has decided to seek access to the witnesses of the 2008 Mumbai attacks for recording their statements and a formal request will soon be filed in this regard.
Officials of the interior ministry told The Express Tribune that this would be the second time that Islamabad would be making such a request.
Four and half months ago, Interior Minister Rehman Malik had requested his Indian counterpart P Chidambaram to allow a special team of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), which wanted to record statements of witnesses, including the magistrate and the relevant investigation officer in Mumbai, to hearing the case in Pakistan.
In a recent development, FIA identified 16 Indian citizens to testify regarding information shared by the main accused, Ajmal Kasab. The case is simultaneously being heard in courts of the two countries.
According to officials, a two-member FIA team would leave for India after receiving permission from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. The team will discuss matters pertaining to post-mortem reports with police officials of police stations concerned in Mumbai.
The commission members will also consult with legal experts who are already contesting Kasab’s case on behalf of the federation in the Anti Terrorism Court No.3 in Rawalpindi.
Meanwhile, an FIA investigation team informed the interior minister that the investigation was not making any progress because of India’s unwillingness to allow the Pakistani commission to record Indian investigators’ statements. “During investigations, Kasab told the Indian magistrate that two majors of Pakistan Army were involved in the pre-attack conspiracy,” they said.
In this regard, the FIA also filed a petition in the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench praying that the main accused, Kasab and Fahim Ansari, should be declared proclaimed offenders.
Both, India and Pakistan, have been stuck on the issue of investigation regarding Mumbai attacks which caused deaths of more than a hundred lives.
In response, a special court in Mumbai last year awarded the death sentence to Kasab, while the trial of seven others accused in Pakistan is being conducted by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi.
Meanwhile, Khawaja Sultan, a counsel for one of the accused, said, “How can FIA officials record statements of Indian citizens. There is no such treaty between the two countries.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 28th, 2011.
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