Ajmal Kasab Trail gets underway
The trial of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving terrorist in the Mumbai Terror attacks of November 2008, opened on Monday. Kasab has been charged with murder and ‘waging war’ against India. Kasab faces death penalty if found guilty of involvement in the terror attacks. Since the $400,000 tunnel linking the prison cell of Kasab and the Court premises is under construction, the accused made a virtual appearance in the Court through video link. Kasab is receiving regular medical help at his Arthur Road Jail cell currently under a three-tier security cordon. On his request, Kasab has been provided with an Udru translation of Mahatma Gandhi’s My Experiments with Truth for reading in his prison cell. On the first day on the three week long trial, Kasab confessed that he was a Pakistani national. During the trail proceedings Judge Tahilyani had proposed to provide Kasab with a Government appointed defense lawyer. The next hearing is scheduled for March 30.
In an atmosphere where Pakistan is negotiating peace deals with terrorists and the U.S. has been accused of torturing ‘terror suspects’, India has put a terror suspect on trial. Is this the victory of India’s democratic process or the lack of resolve on India’s part? Is India going soft on terrorism or is the country right in extending the right to habeas corpus to people alleged of involvement in terrorist activities?
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Kasab is one of those lucky fortunate ones to get such good treatment after killing so many civilians at the expense of the tax money paid by those civilians in the name of democracy. He has nothing but to smile at the system that works in the country where he was caught alive unlike his other couterparts who are missing the treatment that is being provided to him. Its difficult to say what would be the outcome of this trial as anything can happen in India. He might just live for another 20 years in that high security prison fighting the indian government through appeals after appeals till the time when some government decides that he be pardoned so that muslim sentiments in the country are not hurt. It seems an unnecessary waste of time and resources with no outcome. It will become one of those long television soaps that Indians love to see for years together.
I guess thats possible…look at the fate of Afzal Guru convicted in the Parliament shooting case or even Nailini Sriharan serving life imprisonment for assassination of Rajiv Gandhi!