Mumbai, May 03: He sobbed quietly in court when told he had been convicted of almost all the charges.
Normally cheeky, 22-year-old Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the Pakistani gunman who wreaked havoc at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus along with his partner Abu Ismail on November 26, 2008, looked tense and high-strung when first additional principal judge Madan Tahaliyani started reading the judgment.
A little while later, Kasab, wearing a white kurta-pyjama, was seen wringing his hands in despair and staring at the floor. He didn’t even bother chatting with his co-accused, Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, who were ultimately acquitted.
When the judge asked Kasab to stand up and explained the verdict against him, Kasab didn’t react immediately. But when he finished explaining his conviction, Kasab slumped on his seat and burst into tears.
Before he left, Kasab was told that the arguments related to his sentence would begin on Tuesday. He didn’t manage to meet the judge in the eye. He simply left.
This unexpected reaction stumped everyone considering the way in which he had changed his stance in the trial. The trial began with him smiling incessantly as though he had nothing to worry about. He played along and adopted a strategy to show himself like a juvenile.
In the middle of the trial, Kasab, who seemed utterly bored and restless at this stage, suddenly confessed to his crime on July 20, 2009. He clearly told the judge that he wanted the trial to get over and wouldn’t mind facing capital punishment. “Hang me,” he told the court.
When the trial ended, Kasab again surprised everyone by saying that he was an innocent Pakistani villager who was trapped by Indian investigative agencies. This story was not accepted by the court.One can only guess whether or not Monday’s show of emotion was a pretence or for real.
-Agencies