Kasab’s Life Ends On A String
In A Top-Secret Operation Executed With Surgical Precision, LeT Terrorist Ajmal Kasab Is Hanged At Pune’s Yerawada Jail At 7.30am Wednesday After Being Moved From Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail In The Dead Of Night
Prafulla Marpakwar & C Unnikrishnan TNN
Mumbai: Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab exited this world as stealthily as he had entered Mumbai four years ago. The lone surviving gunman of 26/11 was hanged to death in Pune’s Yerawada jail at 7.30am on Wednesday in an extremely hush-hush operation.
Asked for his last wish, the 25-yearold terrorist from Faridkot village in Pakistan’s Punjab province said: “Gharwalon ko milna hai (I want to meet my family members).” He was told the Islamabad government had been informed about his hanging but had failed to respond. As his hands and legs were tied, his last words, according to officials who witnessed the hanging, were: “Allah kasam maaf karna. Aisi galati dobara nahi hogi…(Allah, please forgive me, this mistake won’t happen again).”
Sources said Kasab was babbling incoherently before the hangman pulled the lever at Yerawada, about 150km from Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail, his home for four years. His body was buried in a pit in the prison premises as there were no claimants. He was convicted in May 2010 by a special judge for murdering seven people directly with his AK-47 and 65 others in common intent with fellow terrorist Ismail. He was also found guilty of being part of a Lashkar-eTaiba conspiracy that led to 166 deaths. The Mumbai high court in February 2011 and the Supreme Court in August this year upheld the sentence.
How Kasab came to be hanged as most of India slept is as dramatic a tale as the unfortunate cycle of terror he and his nine other terrorists unleashed across Mumbai landmarks on November 26, 2008.
On November 7, two days after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected Kasab’s clemency petition, Shinde, home secretary R K Singh and sleuths from the Intelligence Bureau drafted ‘Operation X’ to execute him. “It was a top-secret operation. Only a few bureaucrats and high-ranking IPS officers were involved,’’ Shinde told TOI.
Even PM, Sonia didn’t know, claims Shinde
Kasab’s execution was kept such a closely guarded secret that neither the PM, nor Congress president Sonia Gandhi was told about it, Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde said on Wednesday. “My Cabinet colleagues got to know from television this morning,” Shinde said. “The UPA president was not part of the decision. This is the depart-ment’s work, my routine work. It is my nature to keep work a secret, I have a police background.” Shinde was a policeman before joining politics.
Pak govt dodges execution note, citizens say it’s OK
Pakistan stuck to its script of denial on Kasab even in his death as the foreign office refused to acknowledge a note on his execution from the Indian mission. The expected queasiness, in fact, was one of the factors in the cancellation of interior minister Rehman Malik’s proposed visit to India on November 22-23, sources said. In contrast, netizens in Pakistan openly welcomed the hanging, saying, “all terrorists must face the same treatment”.
2nd fastest execution in India; first for a foreigner
Kasab’s execution — exactly five days ahead of the fourth anniversary of his crime — is the second fastest in the country, after that of Ramchandra alias Raoji who was hanged in 1996, within three years of murdering his family. Kasab is also the first foreign national to be hanged in India, among 55 executed so far. Interestingly, both 26/11 and Kasab’s execution were on Wednesday, in November, in a leap year. P10
THE LAST DAYS Oct 16 | Union home ministry recommends rejection of Kasab’s mercy plea to President
Nov 5 | Pranab Mukherjee rejects petition for clemency
Nov 6 | President’s rejection is conveyed to Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde
Nov 7 | Shinde approves execution and sends file to Maharashtra govt
Nov 8 | Maharashtra govt receives file with advice to execute Kasab on Nov 21
Nov 12 | Prison officials inform Kasab about the rejection of mercy plea
Nov 13 | Additional sessions judge issues death warrant
Nov 17 | Arthur Road jail officials inform Kasab about hanging on Nov 21
Nov 20 | Indian high commission informs Pakistan about decision
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