Kasab should be hanged: Malik

Ajmal Amir Kasab, convicted by an Indian court for the 26/11 Mumbai attack, is a terrorist and should be sent to the gallows, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said here on Thursday after delegation level talks between the two countries.
“Kasab is a terrorist, a non-state actor who should go to gallows and his accomplices too. So should perpetrators of the Samjhauta Express blast,” said Malik.
He said the Pakistani judicial commission looking into the terror attack would be coming to India soon and would positively impact the trial of those accused in the Mumbai terror attack.
“The judicial commission has a limited mandate. They’ll be in India any time after we hear from the Indian side. They will submit the report after the visit which is going to give a positive impact to the judicial process (of 26/11),” Malik told reporters at the Shangri La Hotel.
Malik said that if the Judicial Commission gets credible evidence of any Pakistani’s involvement in the Mumbai carnage, it would help the Pakistan Government in prosecuting the accused in his country.
“Once that Commission will go to India, its findings are important for the judicial process in Pakistan. When the findings are there, they will be covering all the legal sides. Then there will be some judicially-satisfactory statement,” he said.
Asked how long the Judicial Commission would stay in India, Malik said it would be there for three-four days as long as “you can accept them as guest.”
To a question on when the trial would complete, the Minister said as soon as the report comes, the process will begin “but it is too early to say how”.
On the release of JuD founder Hafiz Saeed, he said, “He was bailed out by the highest court of Pakistan and the government can’t do anything about it”.
“A list of banned organisations was issued before Id and there was no credible evidence that Jamat ud Dawa was working otherwise,” he added.
Malik also denied that his country had sheltered the Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin LAden.
The judicial commission report, Malik said, would help plug the legal lacuna and move forward the trial of those accused in the Nov 26 Mumbai terror attack.
India had last week welcomed Pakistan’s decision to send a judicial commission to interview witnesses connected with the 26/11 terror probe.
“We look forward to the visit of the judicial commission,” Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai had told reporters Nov 5.
Pakistan’s High Commissioner Shahid Malik has conveyed to Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram that the Pakistani government would soon be sending the commission to take forward the process of bringing to justice the perpetrators and conspirators of the Mumbai carnage.
The commission is expected to record the statements of Mumbai Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate R.V. Sawant Waghule and investigating officer Ramesh Mahale, who had recorded the confessional statement of Ajmal Amir Kasab, convicted of the terror attack.