Pakistani prosecutors on Tuesday filed a petition in a Rawalpindi-based anti-terrorism court for the formation of a commission that would visit India to record the testimony of 24 key witnesses in the Mumbai attacks case.
Federal Investigation Agency prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar told PTI that the petition was filed in the anti-terrorism court of Judge Malik Mohammad Akram Awan, who is conducting the trial of Lashkar-e-Tayiba's operations chief Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and six other Pakistani suspects charged with involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
The prosecution proposed that a representative of lawyers defending the accused should be made part of the commission, so that they could cross-examine the 24 Indian witnesses, including a magistrate, a police officer and doctors who had conducted autopsies of the victims.
The judge issued notices to the accused to submit their response to the petition at the next hearing of the Mumbai attacks case scheduled for September 18.
Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik had last week acknowledged that the trial of the Pakistani suspects was stalled and it was imperative to form the commission that would go to India to record the testimony of the key witnesses like the magistrate and the police officer.
The magistrate had recorded the confessional statement of Ajmal Kasab, the lone attacker captured alive during the Mumbai strikes, while the police officer had led the investigation of the 2008 attacks that had killed 166 people.