Kasab: the Mumbai gunman awaiting hanging
Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab. — File Photo by AP
MUMBAI: Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, labelled the “Butcher of Mumbai”, is a school drop-out waiting to be hanged in India for his role in the 2008 attacks on the city.
The 24-year-old Pakistani national was one of two heavily armed gunmen who opened fire and threw hand grenades at Mumbai’s main railway station on November 26, 2008, killing 52 people and wounding more than 100.
He was allegedly born in the dusty village of Faridkot in a remote and impoverished region of Punjab in Pakistan’s farming belt, home to 10,000 people, most of them farmers and labourers and few of them literate.
His father, Mohammed Amir Iman, ran a food stall in the village.
Kasab dropped out of school in 2000 and worked as a labourer in the eastern city of Lahore until 2005, according to his initial confession to police, which was widely published in India.
He first pleaded not guilty but later made a confession, admitting being one of the 10 gunmen trained, equipped and financed by the banned Lashkar-i-Taiba (LeT).
Kasab reportedly said he joined LeT to get weapons training after deciding to embark on a life of crime but there have also been claims that his father duped him into doing it for money.
The Supreme Court in New Delhi on Wednesday upheld his death sentence, leaving him with a final appeal to the president to save him from death by hanging.
“He fits the profile if you look at the terrorists recruited by Lashkar-i-Taiba,” Wilson John, senior fellow at New Delhi’s Observer Research Foundation and a specialist in extremist groups, told AFP.
“They come from lower-middle class or poor families. They’re not entirely uneducated, just a little bit educated; they’re unemployed and looking for a job. They’re not religiously inclined but they can be brainwashed.
“He was a prime target.” When his trial began in 2009, Kasab at first appeared relaxed, dressed in either a T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms or a traditional kurta-pyjama, joking or smiling at lawyers and reporters.
But he seemed increasingly sullen, withdrawn and even asleep as the trial progressed, prompting fears for his mental state. He showed no emotion in the dock when he was pronounced guilty of murder and waging war on India.
Since his conviction, he has been held in a high-security jail in Mumbai.
When his Supreme Court appeal began in January, he issued a statement saying he had been denied a fair trial.
Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam characterised Kasab as a shrewd and calculating operative, describing him as a “human shape” with no feelings or emotion.
While pushing for the death penalty, Nikam dwelt on the apparent smile Kasab wore while firing on travellers in the train station and his reported regret at arriving late at the target because he had missed the commuter rush.
His defence lawyer, K. P. Pawar, sought to persuade the court that Kasab was a susceptible young man who had been brainwashed.
“He was mentally defective (at the time of the attacks) and the effect impaired his ability to appreciate the impact of his conduct,” Pawar told the court during discussions about his sentence.
“He’s a human being of flesh and blood, that should not be forgotten,” he added.
….just checking , isn’t the title of this blog wrong – shouldn’t it say “Kasab The Faridkot/Pakistani Gunman” ?……
A puppet in the hands of …….We must not forget that the real culprits are still free and business as usual.
i believe..since he killed innocent people…he should be hanged.
I am a Pakistani …..and if he did commit this heinous crime then he should be hanged , or at least life in prison until he dies, killing innocent people is the worst thing another human being can do & the punishment should be exemplary.
@Natesh: Ajmal kasab has been identified by more than 100 witness as terrorist who killed people in public. Photos, Videos, etc are proof too. What further transparency you want?
Just FYI, the cost of housing, providing security for and trying Kasab has reached 53 crores and counting. 10 million dollars in a country where 600 million people live below the poverty line.
He is a killer, and it is wide open on camera, got to be hanged.
Just curious for one thing, the band he got on his right hand, is it some blessings from????????
That is very nice that a worst enemy of humanity is approaching to his end.
Let’s not hang Kasab. Death penalty is a mild sentence and it will in his mind fulfill the promise of paradise he was made by the mullahs of Laskar-e-Taiba. He shall instead be put into life of hard labor with no release ever. He shall be made to dig canals, make bricks, or hard manual labor that will punish him perpetually and for a long time. Death is too easy for such fanatics and they will enjoy it.
Before Ajmal Kasab is hanged he should be allowed to be cross examined by Pakistani or a netural prosecution team. Why was he denied access to a group of lawyers that went to india to investigate the crime from Pakistan. Now days our police can tourture anyone and ask him to commit to any crime Hde may or may not be involved in. I am not saying that Ajmal Kasab is guilty or not guilty… I am saying that his investigation was not transparent especially when this is a ase of international terrorism. If Ajmal dies there may be some elements of truth that would die with him as well.
Very well said.
Picture itself speak thousand world.
I agree 100% with you.
Seriously? Are you being sarcastic or under the influence of misplaced and inflated nobility. Ajamal did not commit a “crime” in the generally understood sense of murder but an extreme pathologically hatred driven killing of civilians. There are no truths that will die with him. Only he will. He was tried in a court and given all resources and rights that he and his fellow terrorists deprived all those killed in Mumbai by them. You imply that he may not have been involved in the “crime”. I can only gather from your comments that you either agree with his acts and his ideas being a fellow Muslim of extreme religious bent or a seriously deluded Hindu. Either way all I can say is may shame triumph over you one day and instruct you to review and reform your values. And, if you are not an atheist like me, may the highest morals of your maker defeat your baser motives.
Did you see his photo published with this article or you are a blind?