Finally, Pakistan government has decided to allow a 7-member FBI team to grill the six persons accused of involvement in 26/11 Mumbai attacks and currently being held by Pakistani authorities. The American sleuths will visit Islamabad this week.
The Zardari government agreed to direct interrogation of the accused by FBI after intense international pressure, Dawn reports.
The six persons to be interrogated include masterminds Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah; main facilitator of the attack Hamad Amin Sadiq; Abu Alqama alias Mazhar Iqbal; Javed Iqbal; and another unidentified suspect.
The authorities had accused eight persons of being behind 26/11, but were able to arrest only six of them, while another two still remain at large.
FBI and Indian investigation agencies have been cooperating under a joint anti-terror mechanism. FBI provided India with the details of calls made by the attackers via the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a satellite phone and documents relating to the Global Positioning System used by the terrorists while sailing from Karachi.
The GPS coordinates given in the Indian dossier were used to conduct raids in Karachi on two houses used by the terrorists. In one of those raids a dinghy used for training of the terrorists was recovered.
Pak media reports also say that the Zardari government has dropped plans to send a team of investigators to India and decided not to request for extradition of Kasab the gunman caught live during 26/11.
Both these moves appear aimed at stalling India’s request to send its own investigators to Pakistan and also pressure for extradition of the accused.
