Maharashtra Home Minister Jayant Patil on Thursday showered praise on the Mumbai Crime Branch, which is investigating the 26/11 terrorist attacks, and claimed that the investigation done by it compelled Pakistan to finally admit that Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab was a Pakistani.Patil told reporters that the Mumbai Crime Branch investigated the case properly and collected evidences systematically, which forced Pakistan to admit that Kasab was its national.
A Mumbai Special Court, which conducted the trial of 26/11 terror strikes, is all set to announce the quantum of punishment on Thursday. The entire country is waiting for Judge M L Tahiliyani to pronounce punishment for lone surviving Pakistani terrorist--Ajmal Amir Kasab.
Amid reports of a rift between them, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met in Islamabad on Wednesday to discuss the regional security situation after the country's admission that captured Mumbai attacker Ajmal Amir Kasab is its national. The meeting came amid Pakistani media reports that Zardari was angry over Gilani's decision to sack Durrani without consulting him. Durrani had been handpicked by Zardari for the key post last year.
Judge M L Tahaliyani has announced May 3 as the date for the verdict after hearing the arguments by both prosecution and the defence.
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In a report tabled before an anti-terrorism court, Pakistani investigators said there is "sufficient incriminating evidence" against the arrested terrorist, including Lashkar-e-Taiba's operations chief Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.
A Pakistani anti-terror court on Wednesday framed charges against Lashkar-e-Tayiba's operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and six others for involvement in the Mumbai attacks and declared 16 people, including Ajmal Amir Kasab, as proclaimed offenders.
Pakistan said on Sunaday that it will examine the findings of its probe into 26/11 on Monday as the media in Islamabad reported that the government will file cases against five Pakistanis, including lone captured terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab, for planning the Mumbai attacks.
India on Wednesday said it has become increasingly clear that 'state actors' were involved in executing the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and that without state support the terror control room could not have been established in Pakistan.
Evidence in 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case involving Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab and nine slain terrorists clearly showed it to be a "pre-meditated" assault on the country's commercial capital by Pakistani terrorists, guided by their handlers from across the border, the Supreme Court was told on Thursday.
The investigating officer in the 26/11 terror attack case, who had helped build a water-tight case against Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, has resigned, police sources said.
Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam handed over a sealed envelope to Judge M L Tahiliani during the ongoing trial into the Mumbai terror attacks. He sought the judge's permission to keep the identities of six FBI agents, who are likely to depose during the trial, a secret.
A Pakistani national has been detained in Dhaka in connection with the Mumbai terror attack. The Pakistani detainee was reportedly responsible for running the financial network of the LeT and preparing the groundwork for the actual attack. The Pakistani national held in Dhaka is also linked to the LeT.
The meeting takes place a day after there was confusion over reports that Pakistani authorities have filed a case against Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive during the November 26, Mumbai attacks and 12 others in connection with the strikes but the government denied it.
A joint exercise, `Tropex' of the country's armed forces, Army, Navy and Air Force--began at Madhavpur in Porbandar on Monday, which is just 80 nautical miles from Pakistan's trade centre Karachi. The exercise gains significance as it is being carried out when the relationships between India and Pakistan are strained after the Mumbai terror attacks.
Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab, the lone terrorist captured during the Mumbai attacks on November 26 last year, is a Pakistani national, a Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman said on Wednesday. However, Pakistan Information Minister Sherry Rehman stated that Kasab was not linked to any official agency.
The Anti-Terrorism Court also observed that the statement of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving Mumbai gunman, could not be produced as evidence in the court, as it was not according to the guidelines set in the Article 43 of the country's penal code.
Responding to Pakistan's queries, India on Wednesday handed over to it the third dossier of evidence on the Mumbai terror attacks, including the certified DNA report and statement of the lone arrested terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab.The voluminous documentation, comprising replies to ten queries made by Pakistan and 15 booklets, were handed over by a senior official of the Ministry of External Affairs when he called a senior diplomat of the Pakistan High Commission.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday fired the special public prosecutor in the Mumbai terror attack case, more than a week after the senior lawyer sparked a controversy claiming that Islamabad had formally requested India to hand over Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested during the three-day terror siege..
India's approach of "cohesive diplomacy" has "forced" Pakistan to admit that its soil was used for launching the Mumbai attacks, Home Minister P Chidamabaram said on Monday and asked Islamabad to complete its probe and punish all the guilty.
A brief statement issued by the Prime Minister's House said Yousuf Raza Gilani had sacked Durrani 'for his irresponsible behaviour (of) not taking Prime Minister and other stakeholders into confidence and lack of coordination on matters of national security'. Gilani was quoted by Geo News channel as saying that he had sacked Durrani for commenting on the issue of the nationality of Iman alias Ajmal Kasab without taking him (Gilani) or the government into confidence.
A five-member team of the Interpol met Mumbai Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria on Monday and sought details of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive during the November 26 terror strikes.
In a U-turn, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said there is still no 'real evidence' that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai came from Pakistan nor had it been established that the lone arrested attacker Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab hailed from the country's Punjab provinceZardari, who earlier acknowledged that the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage of November 26 could be 'non-state actors' from Pakistan, made these remarks.
Buoyed by a Pakistan court's order -- that stated that the trial of terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab cannot be separated from that of the seven Pakistani suspects arrested for planning the terror siege on Mumbai -- Lashkar-e-Tayiba commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi plans to file a petition in the Supreme Court seeking an acquittal. "We will approach the Supreme Court in a few days, following the Lahore high court's order," said Lakhvi's lawyer Khwaja Sultan.
The Pakistan government on Monday night said that it has received a letter written by Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab, the lone terrorist captured for the Mumbai terror attacks, and was examining its contents.The Foreign Office in Islamabad said the letter, in which Kasab sought legal assistance and a meeting with Pakistani officials, was forwarded to the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi by the Indian government.
M L Tahiliyani has been appointed as a Special Judge to conduct the trial in the November 26 terror attacks in the city, Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor said omn Monday.
Ismail Khan, an accomplice of arrested terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman alias Kasab, is the one who gunned down three top police officials in a gun battle at Cama Hospital, according to Kasab's statement recorded by the police. Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare, Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Kamte and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar were shot dead by Ismail Khan.
Amidst Pakistan's attempt to dispute the nationality of the lone surviving gunman arrested for the Mumbai terror attacks, a Pakistani lawyer has claimed Ajmal Amir Iman was a Pakistani citizen arrested two years ago in Kathmandu by "Indian agencies" with the help of Nepal.
The officials of Federal Bureau of Investigation grilled Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab, the lone Lashker-e-Taiba militant involved in November 26 terror strikes, for over nine hours recently to ascertain about his role and handlers in Pakistan.
A Federal Bureau Investigation team visited the village of Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab, the lone terrorist captured during the Mumbai attacks, in Pakistan's Punjab province to probe his inks to the deadly terror strikes and was still continuing its investigation.
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman alias Kasab, the lone terrorist caught alive during the November 26 terror attacks in Mumbai, was on Wednesday further remanded in police custody till January 6 by a court in Mumbai. Due to security concerns, Ajmal was not produced before a regular court, and Metropolitan Magistrate N N Shri Mangale and public prosecutor Eknath Dhumal went to the police lock-up, where the terrorist is being kept.
American investigators who questioned Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab, the lone terrorist captured during the Mumbai attack, are convinced he is a Pakistani national and that the terrorist strike was planned and executed by the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, diplomatic sources said on Tuesday.These findings fit in with comments by top American leaders like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Admiral Mike Mullen, the senior-most US military official, who have asked Pakistan to take quick action.
India on Monday handed over a letter written by the only surviving terrorist involved in the Mumbai terrorist attacks, Ajmal Amir Kasab to Pakistan's acting High Commissioner Afrasiab, in which he states that he is a 'Pakistani'. In his letter, Kasab also says the other nine involved in the attack were also Pakistani nationals and that he wants to meet the Pakistan High Commissioner.
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab, the lone terrorist caught alive during November 26 terror attacks, is not aware that Pakistan has disowned him, a crime branch official said.
"Such material cannot be treated as ample proof," a source in the Foreign Office was quoted as saying by The News daily.The statement of Iman alias Ajmal Kasab does not amount to admissible proof under "any penal code anywhere in the world, including India or Pakistan," it said.
'I have checked myself. His (Ajmal Amir Iman alias Ajmal Kasab) house and village has been cordoned off by the security agencies. His parents are not allowed to meet anybody. I don't understand why it has been done,' Sharif, who hails from Punjab, said in an interview to Geo News channel.
The daughter of slain encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar, who was killed during the Mumbai terror strikes exactly a month ago, on Friday called for the death sentence for Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab, the lone terrorist captured in the attack on November 26."It (killing of Vijay Salaskar) angers me. I feel that the worst death sentence should be given to him (Ajmal)," his daughter Divya Salaskar said, reacting to the death of her father during the shoot-out with the terrorist.
Clearing the air on why all three top officials -- Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare, Additional Commissioner of Police (ACP) Ashok Kamte and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar who succumbed to bullet injuries -- were sitting in one vehicle, Mumbai Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria said: "Given the circumstances they sat together in the police vehicle, which was available to them."
"The purpose of allowing the DCPs to interact with Kasab is to understand the psyche of a terrorist. This will help the DCPs to take precautionary and remedial measures to prevent any such crimes in future," Rakesh Maria, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) said on Friday.
While describing LeT's plan to project the 26/11 attack as "Hindu Terror", Maria wrote, "If everything went according to plan, Kasab would have died as Chaudhari and the media would have blamed 'Hindu terrorists' for the attack."