By NNN-PTI
Islamabad : A team from Britain’s Scotland Yard probing the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto will submit its report to the Pakistani authorities this week.
The three-member team of British detectives arrived at the airport here on a British Airways flight Thursday morning. They were received by officials of the British High Commission and whisked away amidst tight security.
A strong police contingent escorted the British team, which refused to talk to waiting journalists.
Pakistani officials said the team will submit a report on its findings in Bhutto’s murder to the Interior Ministry this week.
A group of forensic, computer and explosives experts from the Counter-Terrorism Command of Britain’s Metropolitan Police had come to Pakistan on Jan 4 after President Pervez Musharraf sought Scotland Yard’s help to probe Bhutto’s assassination.
Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi on Dec 27. Musharraf blamed Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud of masterminding the assassination, but the militant leader denied the charge through his spokesman.
Last month, Pakistani authorities in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan arrested 15-year-old Aitezaz Shah, who claimed he was part of a five-member suicide squad sent by Mehsud to target Bhutto. Authorities are currently trying to corroborate his claims.
Meanwhile, Pakistani authorities briefly took a private news channel off cable networks in several cities as it was airing a show hosted by an anchor who has been critical of President Pervez Musharraf’s regime, the TV station said Thursday.
Aaj television went off the air in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and several nearby areas without any prior notice being given by the government at 10.30 pm Wednesday night, an official of the channel said.
“There was no intimation or warning of the blackout,” he said.
The channel was restored to cable networks early Thursday morning. This was the second time Aaj was taken off the air, the first being after Musharraf proclaimed emergency in November last year.
Aaj vanished from cable networks while it was beaming the popular news and current affairs show “Live With Talat” hosted by Talat Hussain, an anchor who had earlier run afoul of the military regime for his criticism of Musharraf. One of the guests on Hussain’s programme was senior journalist Nusrat Javed, whose show “Bolta Pakistan” has already been taken off the air by the authorities.
Despite its name, Hussain’s programme is no longer aired live and is beamed after being recorded in the studio. Aaj reportedly rebuffed pressure from the Pakistani authorities to take Hussain off the air.
Musharraf shut down all foreign and Pakistani news channels after he imposed emergency on November 3. The Pakistani channels were allowed to return only after signing a government-mandated code of conduct.
In WASHINGTON, the US has said it did not have any information that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was pursuing yet another peace deal with the tribal chiefs in the country’s north but maintained that such accords did not produce the intended results in the past.
“I’ve seen a couple of press reports, but I don’t have any information that would support that there’s any kind of renewal of the previous agreement that had been in place,” State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said.
However, he added: “I think everyone understands, including President Musharraf, by his own statements, that that agreement with tribal leaders did not, in fact, produce the results that everyone, including President Musharraf, had intended”.
Casey asserted that the US wants to “see action” to respond to the threat and challenge posed to Pakistan from militant and extremist groups operating in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
“Certainly this is a serious problem. We want to see it addressed and want to continue to work with the government of Pakistan on it. But I’m not aware that there is any new agreement or new proposal for an agreement that would move us back in the direction of the previous arrangement,” he said.
Any arrangement made should be effective at pursuing the goals of Pakistan and the US — to be “able to defend against and defeat these kinds of extremist groups,” Casey said.
“The last agreement wasn’t effective, and by President Musharraf’s own admission…I can’t be opposed to something I haven’t seen and something that at this point’s hypothetical,” he said.