With counsel for Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, the LeT commander who is said to have orchestrated the 26/11 attacks here, claiming that Lakhvi wasn’t involved in the attack, the Pakistani Judicial Commission’s visit to collect evidence appears set to become a farce.
Lakhvi’s lawyers accused Magistrate R V Sawant-Waghule of falsifying Pakistani terrorist Mohammad Ajmal Kasab’s confession by wrongly implicating Lakhvi in the attacks.
According to the defence counsel, Kasab hadn’t mentioned Lakhvi’s name during his interrogation at all.
Rejecting the charges, the magistrate said: “It isn’t true that I recorded a false statement of Kasab when he was produced before me.”
The Pakistani lawyers went on to say that it was actually the Indian government that was behind the terror attack, drawing attention to an affidavit filed by former Union Home Ministry official R V S Mani. Mani’s affidavit said IPS officer Satish Verma had told him that the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and the 2001 Parliament attack were “engineered” by Indian intelligence agencies.
Earlier, the counsel questioned the presence of Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam at the cross examination of witnesses and said that he had no locus standi.
Nikam countered them saying that he had the right to be present in the court as he had represented the government in the case.
Ramesh Mahale, the investigating officer in the case who was also cross-examined by the Pakistani commission, identified the rubber dinghy and its Yamaha motor, cell phones and the GPS system that were recovered from the Mumbai attackers.
He said the GPS coordinates revealed the markings of the Karachi-Mumbai route used by the terrorists to enter India.
The evidence of the two Indian witnesses is being recorded by Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate P Y Ladekar.
The witnesses are Magistrate R V Sawant-Waghule, who had recorded the confession of Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab and Investigating officer Ramesh Mahale.
These witnesses are likely to be cross examined by the panel members on Wednesday, special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, who represents the Indian Government, said.
This is the second and last day of the cross examination by the eight-member commission which is in India to collect evidence in order to carry forward the prosecution of seven Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) suspects, including Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, held in Pakistan for their role in 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
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