ISLAMABAD, Sept 29: A six-member team led by Water and Power Secretary Ashfaq Mehmood is leaving on Friday for an eight-day visit to India to join a neutral expert appointed by the World Bank in the inspection of the Baglihar dam.

The expert, Prof Raymond Lafitte, will hold his first inspection of the site from Oct 1.

Sources said the Pakistani team would include the attorney-general, Pakistan’s commissioner for the Permanent Indus Commission and officials of the Foreign Office, the Water and Power Development Authority and Nespak.

The sources said the delegation and the neutral expert would spend two days in inspection of the site and two days in studying the project model at Roorkee in Arunachal Pradesh besides holding discussions with Prof Lafitte and Indian officials on the subject. It will return on Oct 8.

The sources said both Pakistan and India had submitted their respective cases on the dispute to the expert as required before his visit to the site.

The visit is expected to be followed by another meeting that the expert may like to convene to raise some questions before both the sides and seek arguments and reasons for violation of the Indus Water Treaty before reaching a conclusion.

The sources said another delegation would visit New Delhi and occupied Kashmir for five days from Nov 7 to hold final discussions on the Kishanganga project before referring the case to the World Bank for arbitration.