RAWALPINDI: The Federal Investigation Agency requested the anti-terrorism court on Saturday to conduct proceedings in the Mumbai attacks case on a day-to-day basis.

Through an application he filed in the court, FIA’s special public prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali said that defence lawyers were using delaying tactics and wondered why the accused were avoiding facing the trial if they were innocent.

He told the court that sub-section 7 of Section 19 of the Anti-Terrorism Act empowered the court to conduct the trial on a daily basis.

He pointed out that there were foreign diplomats among those killed in the Mumbai attacks. He said since the case might have international ramifications the government had ordered the trial should be held inside the prison and requested the court to conduct the proceedings on a day-to-day basis.

ATC Judge Chaudhry Habibur Rehman issued notices to seven accused — Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind; Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younas Anjum — and adjourned the hearing till Nov 10.

In all, 166 people were killed in the attacks on India’s financial hub in November 2008.The FIA’s Special Investigation Unit had lodged the case against the said accused on Feb 12, 2009, and put them behind bars and the ATC, Rawalpindi, commenced proceedings the same month.

The FIA has so far submitted five challans (under Section 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code) before the court. The first challan was submitted on April 21, 2009, second on July 17, third on Sept 9, fourth on Aug 30, 2010, and the fifth on July 9, 2011.

On Nov 11, 2009, then ATC judge Malik Akram Awan indicted the accused.

Chaudhry Habibur Rehman is the sixth judge hearing the case.

Of the 45 witnesses, the FIA has produced only 11 before the court for recording of their testimonies and five of them are yet to be cross-examined by defence lawyers.

Khawaja Haris Ahmed, counsel for the accused, told Dawn that they wanted an expeditious disposal of the case because “my clients are behind bars”.

He accused the prosecution of delaying the proceedings because its case was `very weak’.

The prosecution wasted one year in recording the statements of four Indian prosecution witnesses and also took the defence counsel to Mumbai, he said. “The prosecution hid the fact from the defence counsel and the court that the governments of Pakistan and India were in agreement to exempt the Indian witnesses from cross-examining,” he added.