The intercepted conversation between the executors of 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and their alleged Pakistani handlers during the carnage will be played in the Indian Supreme Court on Thursday after the prosecution said it was important evidence showing the strikes were “pre-planned”. Hearing an appeal of Ajmal Kasab, the sole convict of the carnage, against his death sentence, the court on Wednesday said it would hear the intercepts on Thursday at 2pm in the presence of counsel appearing for Kasab and the Maharshtra government. Former Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam, appearing for the Maharshtra government, said there was no problem in playing the conversation in the court and all arrangements would be made for the bench to hear the same.
A bench of Justices Aftab Alam and CK Prasad decided to listen to the conversation since the prosecution submitted that it was an important piece of evidence. The prosecution had earlier told the court that the intercepts among the 10 terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan established that the terror attack in Mumbai, in which 166 people were killed, was “pre-planned and pre-arranged”. The apex court was told that evidence in the Mumbai terror attack case involving Kasab and nine slain terrorists clearly showed it to be a “pre-meditated” assault on the country’s commercial capital by the Pakistani terrorists, “guided by their handlers from across the border”.
Subramaniam had said the diary recovered from the boat, Kuber, used by the terrorists to reach Mumbai, disclosed that they had come together and on reaching the city, they split into five groups with specific targets. The prosecution said while the attack was launched at Hotel Taj at the Gateway of India, the terrorists were interacting with their Pakistani handlers and the intercepted conversation clearly showed that they (handlers) asked them (terrorists) as to “why they did not sink the Kuber boat”.
Subramaniam said the Pakistani handlers also sought confirmation about the killing of the navigator of Kuber, Amar Singh Solanki, who was beheaded by Kasab. The prosecution said on reaching Budhawar Park, Kasab and other Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist Abu Ismaile took a taxi and proceeded towards Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) Railway Station which bore the major brunt of their design. Subramaniam had said while proceeding towards the CST in a taxi, Kasab planted a bomb beneath the driver’s seat which exploded after they alighted from the vehicle.
He said Kasab and his associate fired indiscriminately at the CST, killing 52 people. Kasab has pleaded with the Supreme Court to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment. The apex court had on October 10, 2011 stayed the death sentence of Kasab. In the special leave petition (SLP) challenging the Bombay High Court judgement, which had confirmed his death sentence, Kasab had claimed he was brainwashed like a “robot” into committing the heinous crime in the name of God and that he does not deserve capital punishment owing to his young age.
