Thaindian News

Islamabad, Mar 14(ANI): Pakistan has turned down an Indian request to allow an inquiry commission to interrogate Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and six other Pakistanis arrested in connection with the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, according to a newspaper report.

“There is no law under which we could allow the Indian investigators to grill the seven accused, who are already in judicial custody,” the Dawn quoted a senior Interior Ministry official, as saying.

In the first week of March, India had sent a letter expressing its willingness to allow a commission set up by a Pakistani court to visit India to record witnesses in India, and also sought permission from Islamabad to allow an Indian team to visit the country to interrogate the seven suspects.

“We have sent them a request asking them if they would agree to a team from India to question the people who are suspects,” Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram was quoted as telling journalists on March 2.

According to sources, the chief of the Federal Investigation Agency’s joint investigating team, Wajid Zia, sent a reply to the Interior Ministry’s National Crisis Management Cell, which has forwarded it to the Foreign Ministry for delivery to Indian authorities.

The letter said that Pakistan’s request for sending a commission to India to interrogate witnesses, including the magistrate who recorded Ajmal Kasab’s statement, is based on sections 503, 505 and 507 of the Criminal Procedure Code, said the paper, attributing to sources.

The sources said the letter questioned the legal basis of the Indian request, and it also mentioned that the seven accused have already been remanded into judicial custody. (ANI)