Kasab held guilty, alleged Indian conspirators acquitted

Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving 26/11 gunman, was on Monday convicted by a special court in Mumbai for the audacious Mumbai attacks that had left 166 people dead.

Over 17 months after he and nine other perpetrators unleashed death and devastation on the financial nerve centre of the country, special anti-terror court judge M L Tahaliyani convicted Kasab for the carnage.

Kasab, who hails from Faridkot in Pakistan, now faces the prospect of death penalty.

Two alleged Indian conspirators -- Sabauddin Ahmed and Faheem Ansari -- who were claimed to have prepared the maps of the terror targets and handed those over to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba for execution of their plans, were acquitted of all charges as the court said the evidence produced by the prosecution could not be relied upon.

The court also held that 20 of the wanted accused, including LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, operations chief Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Abu Hamza, were involved in 26/11 conspiracy.

The court will hear on Tuesday arguments by the defence and prosecution on the quantum of sentence for 22-year-old Kasab, who was captured alive from the Girgaum-Chowpatty police barricade following an encounter after he and his accomplice Abu Ismael had killed several people at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, in and outside Cama Hospitaland Metro Junction.

Pronouncing the verdict, judge Tahaliyani told Kasab in Hindi that the charge against him for waging war against India was found to be true.

While holding the terrorist personally accountable for killing innocent people at CST and Cama Hospital, the court also pronounced Kasab guilty of abetting murder at other scenes of the attacks where his accomplices perpetrated mass killing.

Kasab was held guilty under provisions of Arms Act, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Explosives Act, Railway Act and other laws, but smaller charges like forgery were dropped.

All the ten terrorists were found to be carrying fake identity cards, but the judge said it was not proved beyond reasonable doubt that Kasab had himself forged the document. 

Ten terrorists, trained and armed by the outlawed LeT inPakistan, had descended on Mumbai on a 'Fidayeen' (suicide) mission on 26^th November 2008 and wreaked havoc during the 60-hour siege, killing and wounding people at will.

Kasab, along with nine slain terrorists, was charged with killing 166 people, including 25 foreigners, and injuring 304 others at the instance of Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The trial, perhaps the fastest in a terror case in India, had commenced on 8^th May in a special court set up at Arthur Road Jail which recorded 3,192 pages of evidence after examining 658 witnesses on 271 working days.

Thirty witnesses had identified in court Kasab as the man who had opened fire at them.

Stating that 26/11 attack was not a simple act of murder, Tahaliyani said, "It was part of a larger conspiracy to wage war against the nation."

The judge observed that terrorists' handlers from Pakistanwere directing them, asking them to "fight until death" and not allow themselves to be caught alive.

The court found that 20 of the 35 absconding accused named in the chargesheet, including Saeed and Lakhvi were involved in the conspiracy.

The court had issued non-bailable warrants against 27 of them during the trial which were handed over to the Interpol, but none was arrested.

The acquittal of the two Indians -- Ansari and Ahmed -- came as a jolt for the prosecution.

The prosecution had claimed that Ansari had prepared maps of terror targets and handed it over to Sabauddin Ahmed inNepal. Ahmed allegedly forwarded those to LeT.

To buttress its point, the prosecution had relied upon the evidence of one Nooruddin, who claimed he was present when Ansari handed over the maps to Sabauddin.

One of the maps, according to prosecution, was found from the possession of Abu Ismael, Kasab's accomplice killed at Girgaum-Chowpatty area.

The judge said there was no confirmation about Nooruddin going to Nepal and accepted the defence's contention that if the map tabled by prosecution was indeed found on Ismael, it would have been soiled and stained with blood which it was not.

The prosecution, led by Ujjwal Nikam, submitted 1,015 articles seized during investigations and filed 1,691 documents to support its case.

The prosecution also sought to prove that Pakistan's security apparatus was used by LeT in the attacks.

For the first time in the Indian legal history, FBI officials deposed to give technical evidence to prove the case of the prosecution that the killers came from Pakistan using Global Positioning System and that they made calls from their mobile phones through Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) to stay in touch with the conspirators.