A key witness in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks insisted that Ajmal Kasab, the only gunman caught alive after the attack and later hanged to death, was alive.
“Mudassir Lakhvi, the headmaster of a primary school in Faridkot, where Ajmal Kasab studied for three years told the court that he taught Kasab and he is alive,” a court official told the Indian media earlier yesterday.
Pakistan-born Kasab was hanged at Yerwada jail in Pune in the western state of Maharashtra in 2012 after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his pleas for mercy.
Kasab, 25, was one of 10 gunmen who laid siege to the city in attacks that began on November 26, 2008, and lasted nearly three days, killing 166 people.
The hearing of the case was held on Wednesday, by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) judge at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
Further, the hearing came on the same day when Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj arrived in Pakistan and was assured that Pakistan is taking “steps to the early conclusion” of the Mumbai attack trial.
“The headmaster caused a lot of embarrassment for the prosecution team by claiming that Ajmal Kasab is alive. He was supposed to present the record of the period during which Ajmal Kasab studied in the school and other relevant record but talked otherwise. The prosecution also failed to properly examine him,” the official said.
According to the official, the headmaster who belonged to the native town of the accused Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, may have testified under Lakhvi’s pressure.
The headmaster during Wednesday’s hearing maintained a statement that he gave in May 2014, that Kasab was still alive and claimed that he could also be produced in court if needed.
However, the headmaster made no reference to Kasab, neither did he mention if the accused was the same person who studied in the school in Faridkot.
According to reports, the next hearing of the case will be held on December 16.
The alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror siege, Lakhvi, walked free earlier this year which New Delhi saw as an ‘insult’ to the victims of the three-day orgy of bloodshed in its financial capital.
India has accused the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group for masterminding and executing the coordinated attacks on Mumbai’s landmarks on November 26, 2008 that had left 160-plus people dead. Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) is believed to be the charitable wing of the LeT, though the former denies any connection with the terror franchise.
