As part of its visit to cross-examine the four prosecution witnesses in the 26/11 attacks case, an eight-member Judicial Commission from Pakistan on Tuesday urged a city court that it be allowed to inspect the dinghy and other articles used by the perpetrators.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate PY ladekar — in whose court the judicial commission members re-examined two of the four prosecution witnesses on the first day of their visit — asked Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, to produce the dinghy, its Yamaha engine, cell phones and Global Positioning System (GPS) before the Commission on Wednesday. The judicial proceedings are being held at the Esplande Metropolitan Court.
Earlier, when the judge asked Nikam — who is representing the Government of India — if the Centre had any objection to producing the articles sought by the commission members for an inspection. Replying in the negative, Nikam said that the articles sought for inspection were lying at the Arthur Road prison and would be produced before the visiting commission members on Wednesday.
Given that the purpose of the Pakistani Judicial Commission’s visit is primarily to cross-examine four prosecution witnesses, the judge was in by surprise as to the sudden request for inspection of evidence-articles relating to the 26/11 case made by the visiting judicial commission members. He wanted to know from the commission as to why it had not informed the court in advance about its plans to examine the articles used by the 10 leT terrorists.
The 10 leT terrorists - including the lone captured Pakistani gunman Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab who was hanged to death on November 21 last year - had travelled in “Al Hussaini” ship from Karachi to the high seas, hijacked an Indian fishing trawler “Kuber” to reach a point -- the four to five nautical miles away from the Mumbai coast -- and from there, they used the Yamaha’s OBM-powered dinghy to arrive at the Fishermen’s Colony in South Mumbai on the night of November 26, 2008. During the subsequent mayhem indulged in by them, 166 people were killed and 300 others injured.
On its current visit, the Pakistani judicial commission is to cross-examine Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rama Vijay Sawant-Waghule, investigating officer Ramesh Mahale of the Mumbai police crime branch and two doctors Ganesh Niutkar and Shailesh Mohite, who had conducted the autopsies of nine Pakistani terrorists killed in the 26/11 attack.
It may be recalled that in March 2012, the commission from Pakistan had examined these four witnesses. However, they were not allowed cross-examination. During Tuesday’s proceedings, the Pakistani judicial commission re-examined two doctors - Shailesh Mohite and Ganesh Nithurkar - who had conducted autopsies of nine terrorists, gave a brief account of the post-mortems performed by them.
Talking to mediapersons outside the court, Nikam said: “Mohite had informed the court that he had conducted post mortem on terrorist Abu Ismail, a companion of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, on November 26, 2008,” Nikam said. However, for reasons best known to them, the Pakistani commission did not cross-examine the two witnesses.
Queried as to why the visiting judicial commission member did not cross-examine the two witnesses, Nikam said: “May be, they did not wish to dispute the injuries caused to terrorists and also did not want to disagree about the number of casualties”.
Two remaining witnesses - Magistrate RV Sawant-Waghule, who had recorded the confession of Kasab, and the Investigating Officer Ramesh Mahale would depose tomorrow.