ISLAMABAD - An eight-member panel of Pakistani lawyers will leave for India to cross-examine the witnesses of Mumbai attack case.
In this regard, Special Prosecutor of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Azhar Chaudhry informed the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Judge Atiq-ur-Rehman about the schedule of Pakistani judicial commission regarding the visit to India.
Later, the judge directed him to produce the gazette notification for the departure of the commission to India and deferred the hearing of the case for further proceedings till September 3.
Talking to journalists outside the courtroom after the hearing of the case, Azhar Chaudhry said that Indian government had issued schedule for the visit of Pakistani panel to cross-examine the witnesses.
According to the schedule, Pakistani panel was to leave for India on September 5 or 6 but now it would leave on September 7 due to non-availability of flights.
The panel of lawyers would cross-examine four witnesses - Magistrate RV Sawant Waghule, who recorded the confessional statement of Ajmal Kasab; Ramesh Mahale, chief investigating officer of the case; and Ganesh Dhunraj and Chintaman Mohite, the two doctors who carried out the post-mortem of the slain assailants.
The FIA prosecutor told that Indian Foreign Ministry Affairs issued the said schedule on August 23 and then it was sent to Pakistani Interior Ministry through diplomatic channels.
He told that Mumbai High Court had appointed additional metropolitan Magistrate as presiding officer of the commission. Azhar informed that Pakistani panel consists of four defendants’ lawyers including Khawaja Haris Ahmed, Riaz Akram Cheema, Khizar Hayat and Raja Ehsanullah Satti while other members include FIA Special Prosecutor Azhar Chaudhary, Syed Husnanin Abuzar Pirzada, Deputy Director FIA Faqeer Muhammad and a court staffer Abdul Hameed.
It is worth mentioning here that on November 26, 2008, 10 gunmen laid siege to the city of Mumbai in attacks that lasted nearly three days. It was the deadliest militant onslaught on Indian soil since independence, killing 166 people.
Later, seven men including Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jamil Riaz, Younas Anjum, Jamil Ahmed, Mazhar Iqbal and Abdul Majid were arrested in Pakistan in connection with the Mumbai attacks and court proceedings started against them.