Going Up The River

There are several points of departure, even contradictions, between what Kasab stated in his so-called confession to the special court last week and his earlier confessional statement recorded under provisions of the CrPC: 

• Kasab now names 'Saeedbhai' but leaves out other details of the person and his involvement. For eg: “In Muzaffarabad, I was asked to look for Saeeedbhai’s office…Ten days later, Saeedbhai, Abu Kafa and Abu Hamza came there and selected 15 of us."
  
  He had given details of Hafiz Saeed’s involvement, his motivational lectures to the jihadi recruits.
   
• He now says that Abu Shoaib, one of the ten jihadis, slit the throat of Amarsinh Solanki, the captain of Kuber
  
  Kasab had admitted to slitting Solanki’s throat. Moreover, forensic evidence matched the fingerprints on the knife used to kill Solanki and confirmed that Kasab had wielded the knife
   
• Kasab now says, “I did not throw grenades at CST. Ismail threw the grenades”
  
  He had admitted he had thrown hand grenades as well as opened fire at CST. Further, this has been corroborated by the deposition of eye-witnesses during the trial
   
• Kasab says he engaged the taxi driver and Abu Ismail planted the explosive device in the taxi that exploded at Vile Parle, outside the domestic terminal of the Mumbai airport, that night
  
  Kasab had stated that he had himself planted the device, sitting in the rear seat, while Abu Ismail was occupying the front seat and kept the driver engaged in small talk
   
• In his detailed description of the Cama Hospital incident, Kasab says he kept watch, checked out various points, but did not kill anyone
  
  Kasab had stated how he had fired at victims that night as well as on the police van that carried the three later officers Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar. Moreover, ballistic evidence shows that bullets recovered from bodies in Cama Hosp matched Kasab’s gun
   
• Kasab says he did not hurl grenades at and from Cama, but “put them all n Abu Ismail’s bag and kept watch from the terrace”
  
  He had earlier admitted to throwing grenades at Cama Hosp. This was later corroborated in the court by Additional Commissioner Sadanand Date, grievously injured in that incident, who detailed how both Kasab and Ismail hurled grenades at the police party
   
• Kasab says he did not fire at the police van with Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar, as he had been injured in the firing that came from the vehicle and his gun had fallen out of his hands; he says only Ismail fired at the officers.
  
  Kasab had admitted to firing upon the police vehicle and killing the officers. Constable Arun Jadhav who pretended dead at the rear end of the vehicle has detailed this encounter. He was the 135th witness on Monday when Kasab interrupted with his “confession”.
   
• Kasab now says he had not fired at ASI Tukaram Ombale at Chowpatty when “our Skoda was intercepted because one of the policemen had snatched my AK-47…they were hitting me and I could not hold the gun”.
  
  Kasab earlier admitted to shooting Ombale who hit and tried to restrain him with a lathi. Ballistic evidence proves that bullets that killed Ombale matched with Kasab’s AK-47. Eye-witnesses already examined in the court have confirmed the sequence of events.

***

“Mujhe gunaah kabool hai (I admit my crime).” These four words from Mohammed Amir Mohammed Ajmal Kasab in a special court in Mumbai on July 20 opened a sensational new chapter in the ongoing 26/11 terror attack trial. As a stunned court chaired by Judge M.L. Tahiliyani listened, Kasab held forth for the next three days, recounting the intensive training, minute preparations and final execution of the terror blueprint drawn across the border. Kasab was the only one of the ten terrorists to be captured alive, on 26/11 itself, even as the attack raged on till November 29 taking the lives of over 170 people.

Kasab may or may not have known the import and implication of admitting to the crime in open court (he had hardly managed a word with his lawyer Abbas Kazmi before he stood up to confess). He later clarified that he had not spoken out to seek any leniency or to escape the death sentence, and that if the court believes these to be his motives then “I should be hanged”. Kasab answered in the negative each time when the judge asked if he was “under any pressure” or “was mentally tortured” to speak his side of the story. This was a new Kasab the world was seeing, markedly different in posture, demeanour and language.

But besides the dramatic value and headline potential, Kasab’s “confession” is likely to have little bearing on the trial itself. It’s not even a confession in the sense that Indian jurisprudence, especially the CrPC, understands it. Judge Tahiliyani made the distinction, saying Kasab’s statement was “not a confession but (merely) an admission of guilt”. This, as 26/11 case analysts point out, is in stark contrast to his ‘not guilty’ plea at the start of the trial, when charges were framed against him and others.

After hearing the prosecution and defence arguments, Judge Tahiliyani passed an order on July 23. Accordingly, Kasab’s statement was accepted as evidence on record, to be weighed with and against all other evidence presented, but was silent on prima facie accepting or rejecting it. Noted criminal lawyers like Satish Maneshinde and Majeed Memon, who defended the 1993 serial blasts accused, welcomed this as “the appropriate course of action” though a small minority among the legal fraternity— perhaps responding to the popular sentiment that Kasab “be hanged in public”—feel it should have been accepted, sentence pronounced and trial closed.

The statement, as public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam painstakingly pointed out, was yet another delaying tactic. As many as 134 witnesses, including on duty police officers, survivors, relatives of those who died, have stood in the box, identified Kasab, shared details of the horrific night and been cross-examined. The 135th witness, constable Arun Jadhav, who escaped by pretending to be dead in the rear of the police van carrying the officers Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar (killed in the ambush by Abu Ismail and Kasab near Cama Hospital), was to depose when Kasab rocked the court. Another 50-60 witnesses are still to be examined. Nikam hopes to complete his part of the judicial process in a month from now. This means the verdict on Kasab—and two others, local men Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed involved in mapping and logistics—may well be scheduled for September. Nikam says “Kasab is not a martyr to ask for the death sentence,” “his is a half-hearted admission of guilt without involving the case’s complexity.”

The admission of guilt, both in its content and intent, follows a certain pattern, says a top-ranking police officer. One, there are mismatches and contradictions between this statement and his earlier confession recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC (see box). Two, details in the latest confession do not match the evidence already on record in the court.

Even so, Kasab’s choice of timing has flummoxed officers, the prosecution, the government and even his counsel Kazmi. Many discount the view that Kasab was acting out a script written in Pakistan, because he has had no access to the outside world since his arrest on November 26. It’s quite possible that having seen the dead-end for himself in the trial, he simply reverted back to key lessons from the terror training manual. Then again, he may have been overcome by sudden grief and remorse, which psychiatrists like Harish Shetty disagree with. For effect, though, Kasab did tell the court that he couldn’t “sleep at night...I see the terrified faces of men, women and children”.

In all this, there’s also talk of the confession’s timing, politically impeccable even if unintendedly so, both at the national and state level. The statement came on the heels of Pakistan admitting the LeT’s Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi’s central role in the 26/11 attack. More significantly, it came as a breather for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was taking flak for the Indo-Pak joint statement at Sharm el-Sheikh. Equally significant is the local timing; Maharashtra goes into election mode in three months’ time. What better for the Congress-ncp government, roundly condemned for the ham-fisted handling of the terror attack, than to be able to ask for votes on the grounds that justice had been served to Mumbaikars?

Sources say there is pressure on the prosecution to “speed up” the trial, so that the judgement and the sentence on Kasab and the two local men are pronounced before the poll process gets under way. The rest of the conspiracy involving the absconding accused (the chargesheet names 38 people) can be kept pending—as it is with the ’93 blasts cases against Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon and others. Mumbai, Thane and surrounding urban areas can make or mar the Congress-ncp’s chances of returning to power. The opposition Shiv Sena-bjp is already making a hue and cry about the pending Afzal Guru case, so the ruling coalition would like to hold the trumpcard on the 26/11 case. Home minister Jayant Patil says “we are closely monitoring the case, as anyone would”. Kasab’s admission of guilt must have sounded like music to his ears, except that the law must follow its own course. In this case, it says the confession of an accused must be treated with circumspection. And, so the trial continues.

This story was corrected post-publication in print where the captions for what Kasab had confessed earlier and his latest admissions were interchanged by mistake.