Despite repeated violation of ceasefire on the Line of Control (LoC) by the Indian troops in recent days, Pakistan has decided to send for the second time a judicial commission to India next month to cross examine the four witnesses of Mumbai terror attack to take the case forward in Rawalpindi court.
According to reports, the Pakistani judicial commission is expected to leave for India on September 6 or 7. However, Indian response in this regard is still being awaited.
Seven persons were charged with planning, financing and executing the attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 that killed 166 people and their trial was going on in an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi court.
India has sought an early conclusion of the trial, which, it feels, is going at a very slow pace in Pakistan. The witnesses are metropolitan magistrate Rama Vijay Sawant-Waghule, who recorded the confessional statement of Ajmal Kasab, chief investigating officer Ramesh Mahale and two doctors from the state-run Nair and JJ Hospitals who had conducted autopsies of nine terrorists.
The Indian home ministry will soon approach the Bombay High Court for its permission to allow the Pakistani judicial commission to travel to Mumbai to question the four witnesses.
The findings of the first Pakistani judicial commission that visited India in March 2012 were rejected by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi as the panel’s members were not allowed to cross-examine the Indian witnesses.
