No legal aid to Ajmal unless citizenship proved: Pak

ON THE TERROR TRAIL

Pakistan will not act on the request for legal aid by Ajmal Amir Iman, the lone gunman captured for the Mumbai attacks, unless it is proved that he is a Pakistani national, interior ministry chief Rehman Malik has said.

“There is no question of consular access unless it is proved that Ajmal Kasab is a Pakistan national,” Malik told reporters on the sidelines of a function at the headquarters of the National Database and Registration Authority yesterday.

“We have thoroughly checked the registration record but have not found Ajmal Kasab’s name in the NADRA database,” he said.

“Therefore we are not sure whether he is a Pakistani. How we can give him consular access without having knowledge about his nationality?”

Iman, alias Ajmal Kasab, has written a letter to the Pakistani authorities seeking legal aid and the appointment of a lawyer to represent him. Malik had said on Tuesday that Pakistani officials were examining Iman’s letter and would respond to it by Wednesday.

However, there has been no official response so far from the Pakistan government to Iman’s letter.

Pakistan has been insisting that India should share evidence and information to establish Iman’s nationality and to take forward the probe into the Mumbai attacks.

Though Malik has contended that a scrutiny of NADRA records had not produced any information on a Pakistani national named Ajmal Kasab, the organisation’s database covers only 60 million of the country’s total population of nearly 160 million.