Friday, February 10, 2012

Pak suggests fresh dates for its panel on 26/11

New Delhi, Feb 9, 2012: After dilly-dallying for long, Pakistan has suggested fresh dates for the arrival of its judicial panel to record statements of key officials in the probe of Mumbai terror attack in 2008.

Earlier, Islamabad had cancelled its scheduled visit beginning February 3 at the eleventh hour without citing any reasons. In a fresh communication on Thursday, Pakistan has indicated that any date after February 13 will be feasible for the Judicial Commission.

However, the authorities in India said that any concrete schedule can be announced only after taking fresh dates from the Mumbai court hearing the case.

The visit of the judicial panel is crucial as it would expedite the trial of Lashkar-e-Toiba’s operation commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, who planned the Mumbai terror attack on November26, 2008 that played before the world for the next three days as 10 armed terrorists brutally killed over 170 people.

Lakhvi, along with seven other planners, is being prosecuted at a Rawalpindi court and four judges have already been changed since the hearing for the case began in 2009.

During its three day visit, the Pakistani panel was to take statements of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate RV Sawant Waghule, who recorded confessional statement of Ajmal Kasab, investigating officer of the case Ramesh Mahale and the doctor who carried out post-mortem of the terrorists.

After initially refusing to accept the hands of Pakistani terrorists behind the attack despite the strong testimony of Kasab – the lone surviving executor of the sinister attack, Pakistan agreed to send a panel essentially to tie the loose ends in the case.

Pakistan has named the members of the panel through a gazette notification. The delegation scheduled to come included Khalid Qureshi, the head of the Federal Investigation Agency's Special Investigation Group, and Muhammad Azhar Chaudhry and Chaudhry Zulifqar-- the two main prosecutors.

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