Ajmal Kasab hanged at Yerwada, Pune today

Breaking news :  Ajmal Kasab, the face of Mumbai terror is no more – hanged today @ 07.30 am today on 21^st Nov. 2012.

Today there is news that after almost 4 years after that incident that shocked India and entire World, Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist Ajmal was today hanged at Yerwada Jail in Pune at 7:30 am after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his mercy petition. 

India, the greatest democracy has stood by all cannons of Justice. It has ensured that Justice has been delivered after a due process that tested the patience and pained many Indians too…

The Nation can never forget that dreaded Nov.26 [another 5 days away] in 2008 when  Kasab and nine Pakistani gunmen launched a bloody attack on multiple locations in south Mumbai. Kasab and another gunman attacked Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in south Mumbai shooting train commuters. Over 50 persons were killed and over 100 injured. They then killed the state anti-terror squad chief and two other senior police officers near Cama Hospital.

Justice has come at a great cost – after the martyrdom of Tukaram Omble,  an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) who valiantly fought at  Girgaum Chowpatty to ensure that Kasab was caught alive. . The Indian government honored him with the Ashoka Chakra – for the most conspicuous bravery or some daring or pre-eminent valour or self-sacrifice – on 26 January 2009- sure his soul would now breathe easy.  The Indian govt has incurred very heavily -  the cost of keeping Ajmal Kasab alive through interrogations, jail terms, sentences, appeals and counter appeals has according to this report, already cost the state of Maharashtra an estimated Rs 35 crore, at the end of the day justice was seen to be done.

In this great Nation of ours, even the killer was given a fair trial – the entire legal process unfolded with Kasab being served food and he asking for Urudu papers and more.  India has taken the trouble to conduct and ensure, that it believed in a proper justice system and would deal with attacks against its people according to the law. And this makes the Supreme Court decision to uphold his death sentence all the more powerful, sending out a strong message that terror attacks like 26/11 will not be tolerated again.

Kasab though a foreign mercenary was allowed  to file a petition to the President for mercy. India has proved that in this great Nation,  even terrorists get the chance for a fair trial ~ even when it appeared to be diluting the processing the delaying it inordinately.  

Home minister Sushil Shinde said: "Kasab was hanged at 7:30 am. President Pranab Mukherjee had rejected the Kasab's mercy petition on November 6. President signed the Kasab's death sentence file on November 5 and I also signed it on November 8. Later, on November 8, it was decided that Ajmal Kasab will be hanged on November 21."  "The punishment to Kasab is a true tribute to the victims and martyrs of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks," Patil said.

Meanwhile, home minister Sushil Shinde said: "Indian mission in Islamabad informs Pakistan government about Kasab's hanging through letter. Pakistan refuses to take the letter, which was then faxed."  Earlier, the Lashkar-e-Toiba operative was shifted from Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail to Pune's Yerawada Jail.

In January 2010, nine of Kasab's associates, who had sneaked into Mumbai on the night of Nov 26, 2008, to unleash three days of terror, were quietly buried at an undisclosed location near Mumbai.  Kasab's end has come just five days before the fourth anniversary of the brutal terror attacks that killed 166 lives and injured 300.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar