LAHORE: The under trial Pakistani national Ajmal Kasab’s surprised move on Monday to plead guilty before an Indian court of all the charges leveled against him pertaining to his role in the Mumbai terrorist attacks would help Islamabad expedite the trial of his under detention handlers back home including the chief operational commander of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) Commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.
Ajmal Kasab for the first time narrated to the Mumbai trial court the entire plot behind the Mumbai terror attacks. Kasab confessed in court that he came in a boat from Karachi along with nine other terrorists. “Sir, mujhe mera gunah kabul hai (I plead guilty to my crime),” Kasab told the court. Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam has been quoted by the Indian media as saying that Ajmal Kasab’s admission was unexpected. “Kasab has admitted to all the charges against him. It is a great victory for all of us,” Nikam said.
Some well placed Interior ministry sources in Islamabad say, while requesting anonymity, that Ajmal Kasab’s confession has dashed the hopes of the under trial LeT militants in Pakistan who had been in high spirits following the May 6, 2009 statement of the lone surviving Mumbai attacker in a Mumbai court, pleading not guilty. Ajmal had recalled in his May 6 confession his first contact with the Lashkar-e-Toiba, his induction into the LeT network, his subsequent training and contacts with the LeT founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, among others. According to the confessional statement, Lakhvi was present at a creek as Ajmal and his associates started their voyage from the port city of Karachi to the port city of Mumbai on November 22, 2008.
The sources said that Kasab’s confession and his reported decision to give details of the Mumbai conspiracy would make it easy for the Pakistani authorities to nail down the five under trial LeT militants who are being held at the Adiala Jail in the garrison town of Rawalpindi. The Kasab confession came two days after the Special Investigation Group (SIG) of the Pakistani Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had submitted on July 18 an updated supplementary charge sheet in court against five persons suspected of involvement in the Mumbai attacks. The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) No II in Adiala Jail, headed by Judge Baqir Ali Rana, is trying five suspects – Commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Shahid Jamil Riaz and Hammad Amin Sadiq – to determine their alleged involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
The interior ministry sources in Islamabad say the SIG would definitely present the confessional statement of the sole surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks before the Rawalpindi court to press charges against them because all the five LeT militants are pleading not guilty so far, saying that they had nothing to do with the Mumbai terror attacks. The interior ministry sources added that the new ATC judge, Justice Baqir Ali Rana, who had replaced Justice Sakhi Mohammad Kahut after the expiry of his contract as a judge, would resume the hearing of the case against the Mumbai terror accused on July 25.
Significantly, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab’s confession came a few days after Islamabad’s acknowledgment that besides Kasab, two more of the ten terrorists who had attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008 – Imran Babar and Abdur Rehman- were Pakistani nationals. Going by international media reports, the acknowledgment is part of the 26/11 dossier Pakistan handed over to India last week, which says that determination about the nationality of Imran Babar and Abdur Rehman has been made on the basis of DNA samples. This marked the first time when Pakistan has accepted that the attackers of Mumbai, Kasab included, were its citizens.
amir.mir1969@gmail.com