New Delhi - Mumbai police are seeking the death penalty for
the lone gunman captured alive in terrorist attacks on the city in
November last year, news reports said Saturday.
Jayant Patil, home minister of Maharashtra state, said police
demanded the death penalty for Ajmal Amir Kasab, the PTI news agency
reported.
Kasab, allegedly of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist
group, will face trial for murder and 'waging war against India.'
Two Indian operatives of the group, Faheem Ansari and Sabahuddin
Ahmed, will also be tried for allegedly giving logistical support to
the attackers, the Kolkata-based Telegraph news daily reported.
Kasab was part of a 10-member group that reached Mumbai by sea and
laid siege for three days beginning November 26.
Kasab was arrested hours after the assault began and has been in
police custody since. More than 170 people including 26 foreign
nationals were killed during the siege.
Pakistan, which recently admitted that the attacks were partly
planned on its soil, also arrested several militants including the
outfit's chief, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, for planning the attacks.
Meanwhile, the Indian government said it had 'overwhelming
evidence' that official agencies of Pakistan were behind the assault.
India's Federal Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram in an
interview with a news channel, said Islamabad was doing nothing to
dismantle terrorist camps operating on its soil.
'..Given the overwhelming evidence we have, I am entitled to
presume that official agencies (of Pakistan) were involved (in the
Mumbai attacks),' Chidambaram told the CNN-IBN network.
In January, Indian premier Manmohan Singh had said the attacks had
the 'support of some official agencies in Pakistan'.
Later on in February, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said
Pakistan's spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, was linked to the
perpetrators of the attacks.
'The perpetrators planned, trained and launched their attacks from
Pakistan, and the organizers were and remain clients and creations of
the ISI,' Menon said.
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