26/11: Pak delegation wants to focus only on 15 deaths

Mumbai:  The eight-member Judicial Commission from Pakistan, in Mumbai to record statements of four key witnesses in the 26/11 terror attacks case, raised questions yesterday when it expressly sought post-mortem information for 15 of the 166 victims who were killed in the November 2008 attacks.

The members of the Commission presented post-mortem files of 15 victims to the team of forensic doctors, asking them to explain the nature in which they had been killed. Of the 15 cases that were explained by the forensic doctors to the Commission, one was that of Amar Singh Solanki, captain of the vessel Kuber, which was hijacked by the terrorists to reach the shores of Mumbai. He was eventually beheaded.

Also on the list was the post-mortem report of Tukaram Omble, the assistant sub-inspector who captured Qasab, but was shot dead by him in the process. On Saturday afternoon, the Commission recorded the statements of two forensic experts -- Dr Ganesh Niturkar from JJ hospital, where a majority of autopsies for 26/11 victims were conducted, and Dr Shailesh Mohite, head of the Forensic department at Nair hospital. As most of 26/11 victims died after sustaining bullet injuries, doctors had recovered bullets from their corpses. The ballistic examination of each bullet will shed valuable light on the weapon it was fired from.

One of the possible rationales behind examining post-mortem reports could be the intention of determining the number of victims claimed by each of the terrorists, by taking into account the bullets fired from the weapons wielded by each member of the terror squad. However, officials dealing with the Commission appeared befuddled by the logic behind choosing only 15 reports, over the 151 others.

"There were over 166 deaths in the attack, and the fact that the Commission has handpicked 15 for explanation is strange. There was no clarity on why these particular cases were discussed," said a source.

The Commission is headed by Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali and includes prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar, Deputy Director of Federal Investigation Agency Azad Khan, and defence lawyers Khwaja Haris, Riyaz Akram Choudhary, Fakhar Haayat, Raja Ehassan Ulhakhan and Isaam Bin Haris. While the Commission was denied permission to cross-examine the Indian witnesses, the team of forensic doctors was asked to give their opinions on 15 cases, each of which were presented by the Commission.

The Commission's POA in Mumbai
The Judicial Commission is in the city on behalf of the Pakistani anti-terror court, which is hearing the case against LeT commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and six others in connection with the 26/11 attacks.

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Afghan delegation attacked by militants at site of US killings

Balandi, Afghanistan:  Taliban militants opened fire on Tuesday on an Afghan government delegation visiting one of the two villages in southern Afghanistan where a US soldier is suspected of killing 16 civilians.

The gunfire killed an Afghan soldier who was providing security for the delegation, said Gen. Abdul Razaq, the police chief for Kandahar province where the visit took place. Another Afghan soldier and a military prosecutor were wounded in the attack, he said.

The attack in Balandi village came as the Taliban vowed to kill and behead those responsible for the 16 Afghan civilians killed on Sunday.

The delegation, which included two of President Hamid Karzai's brothers and other senior officials, was holding a memorial service in a mosque for victims when the shooting started.

One of the president's brothers, Qayum Karzai, said the attack didn't seem serious to him.

"We were giving them our condolences, then we heard two very, very light shots," said Karzai. "Then we assumed that it was the national army that started to fire in the air."

He said the members of the delegation, which also included Kandahar governor Tooryalai Wesa and Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid, were safe and headed back to Kandahar city.

The US is holding an Army staff sergeant in custody who is suspected of carrying out the killings before dawn on Sunday in two villages close to his base in Panjwai district, considered the birthplace of the Taliban.

Villagers have described him stalking from house to house in the middle of the night, opening fire on sleeping families and then burning some of the bodies of the dead afterward.

Nine of the 16 killed were children, and three were women, according to Karzai.

Hundreds of students in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday shouted angry slogans against the United States and the American soldier accused of carrying out the killings, the first significant protest in response to the tragedy.

The killings have caused outrage in Afghanistan but have not sparked the kind of violent protests seen last month after American soldiers burned Muslim holy books and other Islamic texts.

The more muted response could be a result of Afghans being used to dealing with civilian casualties in over a decade of war. Some have said the slayings in Panjwai were more in keeping with Afghans' experience of deadly night raids and airstrikes by US-led forces than the Quran burnings were.

But the students protesting at a university in Jalalabad city, 80 miles (125 kilometers) east of the capital Kabul, were incensed.

"Death to America!" and "Death to the soldier who killed our civilians!" shouted the crowd.

Some carried a banner that called for a public trial of the soldier, who US officials have identified as a married, 38-year-old father of two who was trained as a sniper and recently suffered a head injury in Iraq.

Other protesters burned an effigy of President Barack Obama.

"The reason we are protesting is because of the killing of innocent children and other civilians by this tyrant US soldier," said Sardar Wali, a university student. "We want the United Nations and the Afghan government to publicly try this guy."

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement sent to reporters on Tuesday that the soldier should be tried as a war criminal and executed by the victims' relatives.

Obama has expressed his shock and sadness and extended his condolences to the families of the victims. But he has also said the horrific episode would not speed up plans to pull out foreign forces, despite increasing opposition at home to the war in Afghanistan.

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