THE NATIONAL Intelligence Agency (NIA) submitted the notification issued by the Punjab and Haryana High Court regarding the appointment of a special judge of the designated court to hear the Pathankot terror attack case. The court has fixed the next hearing of the case on July 24. The last hearing on May 10 could not be done as the judge was transferred following which the agency filed an application to appoint a new judge to hear the case. The copy of the notification was also sent to the Centre. Sources in the NIA said they wanted the proceedings of the case to be held in an open court for the sake of a fair trial. The sources also added that they do not want any kind of embarrassment as was received by Pakistan in Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav’s case. After the procedure of appointing the new judge was completed, the NIA would now be able to produce the prosecution witnesses in court for their deposition. The agency is also preparing to bring some officials of USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for their deposition. The agency had made the officials the prosecution witnesses. The public prosecutor, representing the NIA, said that the delay was caused as former judge was transferred. He added that with the appointment, the witnesses will start appearing in the court from the next hearing which is fixed on July 24. The agency had already submitted a list of 39 prosecution witnesses in the court including some terrorists of Pakistan based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad. The FBI officials will also depose as the agency helped the NIA to crack locations of the GRPS devises allegedly used by the terrorists to reach the Pathankot air base in the night of December 31, 2015. The court had already declared JeM chief Masood Azhar, his brother Abdul Rauf, Shahid Latif and Kashif Jaan as Proclaimed Offenders.
