India permits Pak investigators access to 26/11 witnesses

New Delhi, Mar 1 (ANI): Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday said the Central Government has allowed an investigating team of Pakistan to question the Indian witnesses of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.

"We have agreed to allow that Commission to come to India to record evidence. What we have asked the Pakistan Government is will they agree to receive a team from India to question some of the persons who are suspects," Chidambaram told a press conference.

"We await an answer for the question that we have put to them, but we have made it clear to them that the documentary evidence that they want will be obtained from the court and given to them," he added.

Farhana Shah, the lawyer of Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, on February 23 said her client will appeal against his death sentence to the Supreme Court of India.

"In my brief meeting with Kasab, I told him that he can file appeal to the Supreme Court challenging the death sentence awarded to him. "Hum appeal karenge" (I will appeal), Kasab told me," said Shah.

"The process of filing an appeal in the Supreme Court can be started only after we receive an order copy," she added.

Earlier on February 21, the Bombay High Court confirmed the death penalty to 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab, terming the case as rarest of rare and holding there was 'no scope of reform' of the convict.

The court, however, dismissed the Maharashtra Government's petition against the acquittal of two Indians Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, accused of aiding the commission of the crime.

A Mumbai Special Court on May 6, 2010, sentenced Kasab to death on four counts.udge M L Tahaliyani awarded the death sentence for Kasab on-waging war against India, murder, conspiracy to murder, and participating in an act of terror under Unlawful Activity Prevention Act (UAPA). asab, who is the 52nd prisoner on death row in India, was also awarded a life term on five other counts.

It maybe recalled that ten gunmen from Pakistan arrived in Mumbai via sea route on November 26, 2008 and started firing indiscriminately at a busy railway station, a Jewish settlement, a popular caf? and two luxury hotels.

Several innocents were held hostage over the next three days and at least 166 people were killed before Indian commandos smoked out the terrorists on November 28, 2008. (ANI)