The visit of the Pakistani Judicial Commission to Mumbai to record the evidence of witnesses in the 26/11 terror attack could turn out to yet another farce by Pakistan on our country. Defence lawyers for Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi the commander of the LeT who is said to have orchestrated the terror attack alleged that Lakhvi was not involved in the terror attack at all.
The Defence lawyers in fact accussed magistrate RV Sawant- Waghule of falsifying Pakistan terrorist Mohammad Ajmal Kasab’s confession. The defence lawyers alleged that the magistrate who had recorded Kasab’s confession had wrongly put the name of Lakhvi as the man who was involved in the terror attack. According to the defence lawyers of Lakhvi, Kasab had not mentioned the name of Lakhvi at all during his confession but it was Sawant-Waghule who put in Lakhvi’s anme in to Kasab’s confession. The defence lawyers also claimed that Lakhvi was not a terrorist but just fighting for the rights of the Kashmiris.
However the magistrate denied it and said that it was Kasab who had given a complete statement of the attack and the men who were involved in it. “ It is not true that I recorded a false statement of Kasab when he was produced before me for giving confession,”said the magistrate.
The defence lawyers were not done, they then decided to say that it was the Indian government that was involved in the terror attack of 26/11 and drew attention to the affidavit of RVS Mani an under secretary in the Union Home Minstry. Mani had said in his affidavit that IPS officer Satish Verma had told him that the 26/11 terror attack and the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament was done by the Indian agencies themselves. However this was again objected to by the Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and the court disallowed this line of questioning.
Earlier in the day the defence advocates also questioned the presence of Nikam during the cross examination of witnesses and said that Nikam has no ‘locus standi. Nikam then told the defence lawyers that he had the right to be present in the court as he was representing the government of India in the case. The investigating officer of the 26/11 terror attack Ramesh Mahale was also cross examined by the judicial commission, Mahale identified the rubber dinghy, the Yamaha motor, cell phones and the GPS systems that were recovered from the terrorists. He also said that the coordinates of the GPS revealed the markings of the Karachi to Mumbai route that was used by the terrorists to enter in to Mumbai.
This is the second and last day of the cross examination of the witnesses by the Pakistani judicial commission.