KUTOKA UDOSINI-INDIA.

Kasab sentence on May 6, prosecution seeks death

  Convicted 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab will be sentenced on Thursday, exactly a year to the day the trial began. The prosecution today sought the death penalty for the "Killing Machine manufactured in Pakistan".

"If Kasab isn't given the maximum punishment of death sentence, then we would continue to remain a soft target for every self-styled (terrorist) organisation," Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told Judge M L Tahaliyani a day after the court found the Pakistani gunman guilty of most of the 86 charges against him.
"If he isn't hanged by the neck then it would amount to mockery of justice," Nikam said.
  Pointing to the evidence of witnesses and Kasab's confessional statement, Nikam said the convict was in a "joyous mood" as he saw innocent people die at the CST railway station. "He wanted to gun down the maximum (number of) people... He always wanted to kill Indians, he was not like a horse running amok during the attack."
  Quoting from nine Supreme Court judgments to back his demand, Nikam said, "We don't want barbaric justice but justice for the society to stop this murderer forever." He called Kasab a "demon of society", and referred to the Ramayana and Mahabharata to argue that virtue must always prevail over vice. "A man of unscrupulous nature with a total disregard for human life should be hanged till death," Nikam said.
Kasab, who was dressed in a white kurta-pyjama, was seen dozing off sitting in the dock, mostly not interested in what Nikam was saying. When the judge asked policemen to take him to his cell and bring him back on Thursday, he simply got up and left the courtroom.
  State-appointed lawyer for Kasab, K P Pawar, pleaded that Kasab is barely 22 years of age, and should be given a chance to reform himself. "He was brainwashed by (Lashkar founder) Hafiz Saeed and (operational commander) Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and others to launch a war against India," Pawar said, adding that Kasab was mentally unwell and joined the other terrorists after watching videos of Kashmir, Godhra and the Malegaon blast.
  To Pawar's plea for a life sentence, Nikam countered: "Kasab is a heartless person. A heartless person is a curse to society and the offence was such that any chance given to him to reform would not be good enough."