FBI to grill Lakhvi, Zarar Shah to establish authenticity of Pak findings

Islamabad, Feb 21 (ANI): The Mumbai terror attacks masterminds arrested by Pakistan will be grilled by a seven member US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) next week to establish authenticity of Pakistani findings and get further information from the 26/11 accused.

The six persons to be interrogated by the FBI team include masterminds Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah; main facilitator of the attack Hamad Amin Sadiq; Abu Alqama alias Mazhar Iqbal; Javed Iqbal; and another unidentified suspect.

The authorities had accused eight people of being behind the attacks, but were able to arrest only six of them, while another two still remain at large.

"The FBI team would question the six accused, who are being held in Pakistan and would also meet the investigators working on the case to discuss their findings so far," The Dawn quoted a well placed source, as saying.

The government, it is said, agreed to direct interrogation of the accused by FBI after intense international pressure.

"There was exchange of information taking place between FBI and Pakistani investigators, but so far the government was reluctant to allow direct access of the foreign sleuths to the accused," the source said.

The US team is primarily interested in questioning the accused on the basis of the preliminary findings shared by Pakistan with India and the US.

"The main objectives before the team are to establish the authenticity of Pakistani findings and get further information from the accused," the source said.

It is expected that the information gleaned from the detainees would then be passed on by the US to the Indian investigators to help them further their probe.

FBI and Indian investigation agencies have been cooperating under a joint anti-terror mechanism and the US investigation agency, it is said, had helped the Indians put together the dossier that was eventually shared with Pakistan. (ANI)