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Mumbai: A day after Pakistani gunman Ajmal Amir Kasab made a full confessional statement about his role in the 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai, judge Tahaliyani will decide on Tuesday if sentence can now be pronounced or the trial should continue.
At noon on Monday, Pakistani gunman Ajmal Amir Kasab started making a full confessional statement about his role in the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai.
In an admission that was unexpected and lasted four and a half hours, Kasab gave minute details of how the attack was planned with the connivance of dozens of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives in Pakistan and how he and his partner Abu Ismail went on the rampage at CST station and neighbouring Cama Hospital. He named LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi as the mastermind of the plot who personally saw off the group at Karachi port.
The 21-year-old terrorist — the sole survivor among the 10 who arrived by sea from Pakistan — revealed that the gunmen had to sit tight in a house at Karachi for over 45 days after they had finished their training (TOI had reported on how the terror strike was earlier planned to coincide with the Ramzan period). They were given strict instructions not to even step out of the house or disobey any orders given by their LeT trainers. Kasab said that it was the same house that had been shown in a news report by Geo TV.
He also washed his hands of the killing of ATS chief Hemant Karkare, additional commissioner Ashok Kamte and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar, saying it was his partner Abu Ismail who was responsible. He blamed another team member, Abu Shoaib for the murder of M V Kuber’s navigator Amar Singh Solanki between Porbander and Mumbai.
He placed a question mark over policeman Tukaram Ombale’s death at Marine Drive by saying that his own AK-47 had already been snatched from him by the policemen who pounced on him. “I did not get a chance to fire. I heard a lot of firing. The next thing I knew I was in the hospital,” Kasab said.
Another interesting revelation that Kasab made was that one of his LeT trainers called Abu Jundal was an Indian national and had taught the gunmen to speak Hindi. “Woh Hindustani hain,” he said.
Kasab’s confession will now be transcribed and a copy of it will be sent to his cell at Arthur Road Jail. He will be expected to read it and sign every page saying that he agrees with what is written. Only after that will judge Tahaliyani consider whether to agree to his plea to “end the trial and punish him”.
The admission of guilt came nearly eight months after Kasab was arrested as the lone surviving member of a group of ten terrorists who killed 166 people and injured over 300 in a terror attack that lasted nearly three days.
Police on Monday said Pakistani gunman Ajmal Kasab’s confession more or less matched with what had been stated in the chargesheet but, at the same time, pointed out some important differences.
Joint commissioner of police Rakesh Maria said: ‘‘Kasab mentioned a new name, that of Jundal. He named him as the person who had taught him Hindi in Muzzaffarabad, PoK, and said Jundal is of Indian origin.”
‘‘If you go through Kasab’s confession, it corroborates what we had told the court,’’ said additional commissioner of police Deven Bharti.
However, police said Kasab skipped or contradicted some key points in his earlier confession. He earlier confessed that his partner, Abu Ismail, kept the taxi driver engaged in talks while he placed the bomb under the driver’s seat. The bomb later went off at Kandivli.