The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has sent the third letter to Indian authorities seeking response to requests of allowing the cross examination of four witnesses involved in the Mumbai attacks probe, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Sources said the FIA wrote a letter to Pakistani High Commission in India, asking officials to take up the matter with Indian authorities, as the trial of case in Pakistani court had been slowed down due to the delay in visit of judicial commission to India. Pakistan had asked the Indian side to allow the cross examination of four witnesses, resend the earlier notification disallowing the questioning by the Pakistani lawyers and copies of statements of witnesses. Earlier, the lawyers representing accused Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jamil Riaz, Younas Anjum, Jamil Ahmed, Mazhar Iqbal and Abdul Majid, had raised objections over the request of the prosecution to form a new judicial commission to revisit Mumbai for cross examining the witnesses there.
Advocate Khawaja Haris Ahmed objected to the request for forming new commission, saying the Indian government should first cancel earlier orders disallowing the cross examination of Mumbai Investigation Officer Ramash Mahale, Rama Vijay Sawanth, the magistrate who recorded the confessional statement of Ajmal Kasab, Dr Shaliesh Mohiti and Dr Ganash Dhondiraj who conducted postmortem of the 166 dead people.
Talking to Pakistan Today, Advocate Riaz Akram Cheema, who represents the Pakistani accused, said Indian authorities claimed they were serious about the high profile case of Mumbai attacks, but did not even bother to respond to a letter of FIA regarding permission for cross examination of their witnesses. “The trial of the case in Pakistan has been stuck due to delaying tactics of India, and the delay shows that they might destroy the evidence of the case,” Cheema said.
