India and Pakistan exchange doubts on terror trials

NEW DELHI/ISLAM­ABAD: India and Pakistan traded doubts on Friday over the delay in two terror trials — the Mumbai nightmare trial that New Delhi wants to be hastened, and the Samjhauta Express bombing, which Pakistan believes has taken too long a time in the trial stage.

In a briefing to The Hindu, a Pakistan high commission spokesman said the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks trial was a judicial matter and there was nothing the government could do over the adjournment of the trial.

The spokesman also expressed concern over the delay in the Samjhauta Express blasts trial in India, the paper said.

Earlier in the day, India summoned Pakistan’s deputy high commissioner in New Delhi, two days after the ongoing trial of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks was adjourned in Pakistan on Wednesday.

In a conversation with The Hindu, the Pakistan High Commission said it had conveyed its inability to “do anything” in the matter to the Indian government.

“Like everywhere else in the developed world, the judiciary (in Pakistan) is independent… the executive has nothing to do with it,” Manzoor Ali Memon, the spokesperson for the Pakistan High Commission, said.

The report has been published on the paper’s website.

“Our job is to present evidence and prosecute the accused…we cannot push the judiciary…it is an independent institution and takes its own time,” said Mr Memon.

He expressed concern over the delay in the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing case, in which 68 people were killed, most of them Pakistanis.

“Families of the Samjhauta Express (blast) victims are waiting to see the perpetrators of that heinous incident brought to justice,” said Mr Memon.

Pakistani Muslim extremists, allegedly close to the establishment, have been named in the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008. Hindu extremists considered close to the Hindutva establishment have been named in the Samjhauta bombing when the train was travelling from Delhi to Attari.

Similar views were reiterated to Indian deputy commissioner in Islamabad Gopal Baglay by the Pakistan Foreign Office, The Hindu said.

It said Ms Riffat Masood, Director General (South Asia and Saarc) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the Indian deputy high commissioner that the 26/11 trial was taking its legal course and efforts were being made for its early conclusion.

Ms Masood said it was “necessary that the outcome of (Samjhauta Express case) investigations be shared with Pakistan at the earliest”.

The trial of the seven Pakistani accused, going on in a Pakistan anti-terrorism court, was adjourned for the seventh time on Wednesday, leading to India’s “strong diplomatic protest” with Pakistan on Friday.

“The Pakistani deputy high commissioner in New Delhi was summoned to the Foreign Office today. Also the Indian deputy high commissioner went to the Pakistan Foreign Office and has lodged a similar protest,” official sources told The Hindu.

The exchange came as the two countries prepared for a meeting of their foreign secretaries next month for discussions on resumption of peace dialogue suspended since January last year.

In the meetings — in New Delhi as well as in Islamabad — Indian officials sought regular briefings on the progress of the trial and the investigation being conducted by Pakistani authorities, the paper said.

Indian officials also reiterated the “high importance India attaches to bring to justice all those responsible in Pakistan for the Mumbai terrorist attacks”, the sources said.

The last two hearings in the trial could not take place because of the presiding judge being on leave. Earlier, on four occasions, the trial could not be held owing to the prosecution lawyers being absent over security reasons.

In June, the trial, which was going on in an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi, was transferred to another recently set-up ATC in Islamabad.

The seven Pakistani nationals being tried for planning and executing the 26/11 attacks are: Lashkar-e-Taiba operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Anjum.

Pakistan says there is no hard evidence to try extremist ideologue Hafiz Saeed while India sees him as the mastermind of the Mumbai terror attack.

The Foreign Office spokesperson had at an earlier media briefing in Islamabad on July 17 said: “The trial of the accused in Mumbai case is proceeding. It’s not held up. Unlike this, however, the trial of those accused in Samjhota terrorist attack in which Pakistanis were the victims, is not progressing. I am not saying that we want to hold up progress on one because of the other. But we do expect that Pakistanis who have been victims of terrorists would also get justice.”