A witness of the prosecution in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack case here is said to have told the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Saturday that the voice of one of the accused matched with that of a handler who directed the coordinated attacks.
However, it was not clear whether the witness — a policeman — identified the person among the seven accused in the case whose voice matched that of the handler. The court proceedings are held in camera in the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
The prosecution's claim was apparently challenged by the defence lawyers who wanted to know how the investigators had got hold of the voice samples as Pakistani law does not allow such recording to be done without the permission of the person concerned.
This provision in the law has been cited by Interior Minister Rehman Malik as the reason why Pakistan has been unable to provide India voice samples of suspects in the Mumbai terror attack. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), he said, moved the High Court for permission. “When we have shared whatever we have in the case with India, why would we not give voice samples,'' is his contention.
Meanwhile, the prosecution witness is also said to have told the court that the police had raided three training facilities of the outlawed Laskhar-e-Taiba in Karachi but conceded that no incriminating evidence had been found in any of these premises. Challenging this, the defence lawyers contended that the prosecution was trying to manufacture evidence.
The court is also said to have asked the prosecution to submit correspondence between India and Pakistan regarding the setting up of a judicial commission to visit Mumbai to interview key police personnel associated with the case and also the magistrate who recorded the statement of Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist nabbed alive in the attack.
The commission has been proposed by Pakistan in view of India's refusal to send Kasab to testify before the ATC since the dossiers submitted by New Delhi are not admissible in court. To deal with this hitch, the FIA suggested that Chapter XL of Pakistan's Code of Criminal procedure be invoked to set up a commission to go to Mumbai to record statements of those associated with the case.
