Death for Kasab "Kasab has no right to live"

Saying that Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist Ajmal Kasab did not have a "right to live", the special court today sentenced him to death for waging war against India, entering into a criminal conspiracy to commit terrorist acts and murdering innocent people.

"Chaar offences ke liye aapko sazaa-e maut di jaati hai, aapko martey dum tak phaansi pe latkaaya jayega" (You have been sentenced to death for four offences. You will be hanged until death), Special Judge M L Tahaliyani told the 22-year-old who had travelled from Karachi to Mumbai 17 months ago and participated in a carnage which left 165 people dead.
"Aapko Hindustan mein aa kar khoon karne ke liye, Lashkar-e-Toiba ke saath saazish karne ke liye aur Bharat sarkar ke khilaf jung chhedne ke liye sazaa-e maut di jaatee hai" (You have been sentenced to death for coming to India and killing people, conspiring with Lashkar-e-Toiba and for waging war against India), the judge added.
The Class 4 dropout sat through the proceedings mostly without displaying emotion. Asked if he had anything to say, he replied in the negative.
As the judge finished reading out the sentence, he gestured as if to indicate the sentence did not matter to him. He then asked a the constables guarding him to take him back to his cell as he had a headache.
Sentencing Kasab to death on five counts and to life imprisonment on as many counts, Tahaliyani said that the recent trend of terrorism showed that keeping a convict such as Kasab alive was a risk to the Indian government.
"He is a danger and menace to society and in future some organisation might hold the government to ransom for getting him released," the judge said, and cited the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 from Kathmandu to Kandahar which ended after New Delhi set free some high-profile prisoners.
"Kasab does not have the right to live," Tahaliyani said.
Welcoming the sentence as one that would "strike fear in the hearts of those who consider India a soft target, Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil said that the state would approach the Centre to ensure that the sentence is carried out without delay.
He said the state would start the process of getting the sentence confirmed by the High Court soon.
Legal experts, Patil added, were in favour of the state appealing against the acquittal of Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmed, the two Indians who had been accused of laying the ground for the attack.
The court said Kasab's acts had deprived him of all right to a humanitarian judgment. "I don't have any words to express the kind of fear and pain of the victims at CST, where Kasab opened indiscriminate fire. Some witnesses were scared to even face him again in court while some, after recording their police statements, did not turn up to depose," Tahaliyani said.
"At times, the right of the victims and the society at large has to be given more weight than the right of the accused and this is one of the cases where I don't find any reason to give a lesser punishment than death."
Reasoning why Kasab deserved only the maximum punishment and how his case fell under the 'rarest of rare' category, Tahaliyani said, "He voluntarily wanted to be a mujahideen and attended training camps held in different parts of Pakistan. He accompanied nine other attackers, from Karachi in a boat, came to India, planted a bomb in a taxi and indiscriminately fired on innocent people."
"I tried to prepare a balance-sheet but couldn't strike a balance here. The case is completely in favour of the prosecution," the judge told Kasab's state-appointed defence lawyer K P Pawar.
"The circumstances of this case are so aggravating that it is impossible to mitigate such circumstances. To give lesser punishment to the accused means the common man will lose faith in the Indian justice system. Undue sympathy and giving lesser punishment would only do more harm to the judiciary."
Dismissing Pawar's argument that Kasab should be given a chance to reform, the court said Kasab had shown "exceptional depravity" as he went ahead killing even women and children at the CST station.
"The number of policemen killed and injured in the attack by him and his deceased partner at CST show that he was enjoying the act," Tahaliyani said, adding that the brutality with which he committed the crimes did not suggest there was any possibility of a reformation.
Pawar's claim that Kasab was mentally and emotionally disturbed during the act and was acting under the orders of his LeT bosses were also discarded. "On the contrary, he was mentally prepared," the court said. "As per his confessional statement, when there was a delay in sailing from Karachi, he was angry and even asked his deceased partner why, and it seemed he was anxious to attack India."