Pakistan on Saturday said that an anti-terrorism court conducting the trial of the seven Pakistani suspects charged with involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks needs to validate lone surviving terrorist Ajmal Kasab's statement as it forms a key part of the case. "We made the statement of Ajmal Kasab as the base (of our case) but our courts require validation of his statement and we have written about this to India," Interior Minister Rehman Malik said.
The Delhi High Court dismissed a plea seeking the removal of the graves of terrorists Mohammad Afzal Guru and Mohammad Maqbool Bhatt from Tihar Jail, citing the absence of any law prohibiting burial inside jail premises and the government's decision to maintain law and order.
The execution of 26/11 gunman Ajmal Kasab and the arrest of 26/11 handler Abu Jundal came as a silver lining to the dark terror cloud in 2012, reports Vicky Nanjappa
As Ajmal Kasab is sentenced to death, Tukaram Omble's family is still coming to terms with the loss. Abhishek Mande
How old was Ajmal Kasab when he was recruited into the Lashkar-e-Tayiba to carry out the 26/11 attacks? Going by an interrogation report prepared by the Bangalore Police, Kasab was 16 when he was roped into the LeT.
'True closure will come only when we as a people, as a civilisation, can relax in crowded, public places without fear, when the ugly metal detectors that greet us at the entrance of every single public space goes forever. That is a distant dream, towards realising which Kasab's sentence is but a baby-step.'
An eight-member Pakistani judicial commission team crossed into India from the Wagah border check post in Punjab on Saturday to conduct the much-delayed cross-examination of witnesses in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which claimed 166 lives.
A total of nine terror sites in Pakistan, including five in Pojk, linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba (Let) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (Jem), were targeted with meticulous planning to avoid civilian casualties.
'26/11 taught us we have to be ready for a direct attack. Today if anyone launches a similar attack we are more than prepared.'
Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah on Wednesday dubbed the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party as "KASAB", adding yet another acronym in the Uttar Pradesh poll campaign, and said development will elude the state till "Kasab is laid to rest".
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Pakistan-born Canadian national and close associate of David Coleman Headley, could be extradited to India in connection with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. Rana's travel history in parts of north and south India before the attacks in 2008 is expected to provide crucial leads for the investigation. His extradition would mark the third person to be tried in India for the attacks, after Ajmal Kasab and Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal.
The nine targets struck under 'Operation Sindoor', four in Pakistan and five in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, were chosen by the IAF after receiving intelligence inputs about terror camps operating under the guise of health centres to evade detection at these sites, officials said on Wednesday.
Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, 21, is a resident of Faridkot, Tehsil, Dipalpur Dist -Ukada, State -Suba Punjab, Pakistan, is a labour by occupation, according to his confession statement.
As Mumbai gears up to commemorate the third anniversary of the 26/ll terror attacks, correspondent Nishi Tiwari finds the family of policeman Tukaram Omble, who nabbed dreaded terrorist Ajmal Kasab even as bullets were pumped into him, bravely trying to cope with the loss -- just as he would have liked it.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Pakistani-born Canadian national accused of playing a role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, has been extradited from the United States to India. Rana was arrested in the US in 2009 and convicted in 2011 for providing material support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group, which carried out the Mumbai attacks. He had been fighting extradition since 2012, but the US Supreme Court ultimately denied his review petition, paving the way for his transfer to India. Rana will now face trial in India for his alleged role in the attacks, which killed 166 people.
'Kasab was never given mutton biryani.' 'What I had said was Kasab had asked for mutton biryani to be served in jail.'
Residents of Ajmal Kasab's village in Pakistan, after hearing the news of the execution of the terrorist, have lashed out at India. The impoverished village of Faridkot, the former home of the 25-year-old Kasab, who was the lone terrorist arrested during the 2008 Mumbai attacks, lies in the farming belt of Punjab province. Residents of Faridkot are mostly illiterate farmers and labourers.
"I remember the evil grin on Kasab's face. Armed with an assault rifle, he was walking towards the suburban platform," he said.
Kasab's execution is part of the government's effort to demonstrate how it will deal with issues of national security strongly, political journalist Rasheed Kidwai tells Priyanka.
Congress on Saturday said the message of 'zero tolerance' against terrorism has been sent through the execution of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, close on the heels of Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab's hanging. Party spokesman Rashid Alvi said, "After Independence, two major acts of terror have taken place in the country -- the attack on Parliament and the Mumbai terror strikes -- and those who were responsible for both have been hanged."
Over 100 terrorists, including high-value targets such as Yusuf Azhar, Abdul Malik Rauf and Mudasir Ahmed, were eliminated during Operation Sindoor on May 7, the Indian military said on Sunday.
The surprising confession by Kasab on Monday had 'dashed all hopes of the under-trial LeT terrorists in Pakistan who had been in high spirits following Kasab's earlier statement in which he had said he was not guilty, sources in the interior ministry told The News daily.
Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal has been spilling the beans about how the entire 26/11 operation was executed from Karachi with the blessings of Lashkar-e-Tayiba founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed. Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa gives details of his ongoing interrogation
"The real threat to the country comes not from fanatic and extremist Muslims, but from people like Sudheendra Kulkarni," it said in its editorial.
Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Tehrik-e-Taliban could target Indian installations near the border areas, said Aditya Mishra, Inspector General (Frontier) of the Border Security Force.
With the Supreme Court upholding the death sentence of Ajmal Kasab in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks case, Pakistan should now expedite the trial in their court, special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam on Wednesday said.
The Bombay high court has rejected the plea of lawyer Abbas Kazmi, who represented terrorist Ajmal Kasab earlier, for initiating contempt action against Judge M L Tahiliyani as he had made certain remarks against the lawyer while dismissing him from the 26/11 attack case.
Little wonder, the Human Rights Watch eloquently said in that report cited earlier that "Although prison systems everywhere are marked by inertia, few can match India's in immutability of practice."
An email threatening to target the cave shrine of Vaishno Devi was purportedly sent by the banned terror outfit Lashker-e-Toiba to a hotelier in Katra to avenge the execution of 26/11 terror attack convict Ajmal Kasab, the police said on Monday.
The investigation, currently being conducted by the National Investigating Agency, has highlighted the possibility that David Headley -- the American citizen arrested last month in Chicago by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on terror charges -- may have involved a couple of women in his plans.
Homage has been paid to all those who lost their lives in the 26/11 attacks by the execution of Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told Rediff.com
Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab and his companions were instructed by their Lashkar-e-Tayiba handlers on telephone to hold as many hostages as possible during the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks to demand from the Indian government the creation of a "separate state for Muslims".
Lawyers defending Lashkar-e-Tayiba commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and six others charged with involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks have said that none of them will go to India as part of a proposed commission to record the testimony of key witnesses, including surviving attacker Ajmal Kasab.
Pakistan government plans to approach an anti-terror court, conducting the trial of seven suspects in the Mumbai attacks, to form a commission that can visit India to record the statements of key witnesses and officials, Interior Minister Rehman has said.
Pakistan's Supreme Court adjourned for two weeks the hearing of Lashkar-e-Tayiba commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi's petition seeking his acquittal in a case related to the Mumbai attacks in order to study Ajmal Kasab's confessional statement.
Rejecting Bharatiya Janata Party's demand for a specific anti-terror law, Home Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said conviction of Ajmal Kasab in Mumbai attack case proved that present laws were adequate to deal with the menace.
Judge ML Tahaliyani, while listing out the reasons why he was not sentencing 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab to life, invoked the Kandahar hijack of December 24, 1999, when the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 was forcibly taken to Afghanistan to secure the release three hardcore terrorists in Kashmir.
Special Public Prosecutor in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case Ujjwal Nikam on Thursday expressed happiness over awarding of death sentence to Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab for the carnage, saying the verdict has delivered justice to the families of the victims.
Rediff.com correspondent Vicky Nanjappa, who has been following and reporting on the case since the attacks, took up readers' queries about the Ajmal Kasab verdict. Here's the chat transcipt
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court conducting the trial of seven suspects linked to the 2008 Mumbai attacks has adjourned proceedings till May 8, apparently in anticipation of an Indian court's verdict against Ajmal Kasab on May 3.
