A four-member team of Indian legal experts has arrived in Pakistan to finalise the terms of reference of a judicial commission that is expected to visit India next year to gather evidence on the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The delegation, led by a joint secretary of the Home Ministry, includes legal experts from the Home and External Affairs Ministries.
Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam — who handled the prosecution of Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist involved in the Mumbai incident — is also part of the team.
The team will hold talks with Attorney General Irfan Qadir and other Pakistani officials to finalise the terms of reference for the second judicial commission that will go to India to investigate the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistani authorities decided to send another panel to Mumbai as the findings of the first judicial commission were rejected by an anti-terrorism court as its members were not allowed to cross-examine four key witnesses – the police officer who led the probe into the attacks, the magistrate who recorded Kasab’s confessional statement and two doctors who conducted autopsies of nine terrorists killed during the attacks.
An agreement was reached on the visit by a second judicial commission when Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik met his Indian counterpart Shushilkumar Shinde in Delhi recently.
Malik said on his return to Islamabad that if the terms of reference are finalised this week, the panel will visit India on January 2 or 3.
