By IANS,
Thimphu : India Monday said it will examine Pakistan’s request seeking the testimony of Indian officials who recorded Ajmal Kasab’s confessional statement after legal formalities end in the trial of the lone gunman captured alive in the 26/11 Mumbai attack.
“We have to complete our legal formalities first and then we can examine Pakistan’s request,” External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna told reporters here.
He was responding to a question about Islamabad’s request for three Indian officials, two magistrates and an investigator to be allowed to travel to Pakistan to testify that they had recorded Kasab’s statement.
The matter will be examined in consultation with other ministries and departments, Krishna said, adding he received the dossier from Pakistan with the request Sunday night but had no time to go through it.
Ahead of a likely meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the SAARC summit, Pakistan Sunday handed over six dossiers to India. These included a request to hand over 26/11 terrorists Kasab and Fahim Ansari.
Krishna, who arrived here Monday for the ministerial meeting of the eight-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, stressed that Kasab’s trial in India was going on in full steam.
A special court in Mumbai hearing Kasab’s case is to give its verdict May 3.