Kasab sends mercy plea to president

The lone surviving gunman from the Mumbai attacks has applied for clemency from the president in a final bid to avoid the gallows

The lone surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks has applied for clemency from President Pranab Mukherjee in a final bid to avoid the gallows, official said yesterday.
Pakistan-born Mohamed Ajmal Kasab, one of 10 gunmen who laid siege to Mumbai in attacks that lasted nearly three days, sent his petition through officials at the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai where he is being held.
“We have sent a mercy petition to the president filed by Kasab,” Ashok Rane, chief of the high-security prison said.
“Kasab has made a mercy plea against the death sentence, which we have forwarded to the president’s office,” Rane said, but declined to give further details.
Kasab was sentenced to death in May 2010 after he was found guilty of a string of charges, including waging war against India, murder and terrorist acts.
He had appealed against the sentence in the Supreme Court, claiming he did not receive a fair trial, but his petition was struck down last month.
Prisoners can often languish for years on death row in India, with only one execution having taken place in the last 15 years - that of a former security guard hanged in 2004 for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl.
There is no definite time period within which the president has to take the decision. The mercy petition of Mohamed Afzal Guru, who was convicted for an attack on the parliament in 2001, is still pending.
However public demands for the hanging of Kasab have been growing ever since the Supreme Court rejected his appeal against the death sentence.
Kasab was filmed walking through Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus carrying an AK-47 and a knapsack on his back during the November 2008 attack..
It was part of a series of co-ordinated strikes on key landmarks in the city, including luxury hotels and a Jewish centre.
The three-day rampage killing 166 people led to an increase in tension between India and Pakistan, causing a temporary suspension of peace talks.
India blames the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant organisation for training, equipping and financing the gunmen with support from “elements” in the Pakistan military.
Kasab initially pleaded not guilty but later confessed, admitting he was one of the gunmen sent by the LeT.
The mercy plea is the last resort available to a person facing the death sentence in India. It puts an automatic stay on the execution of the death warrant, reports said.
Mukherjee, who took office in July, is currently considering 11 other appeals for clemency from death row prisoners.
lThe Delhi High Court yesterday issued a notice to Wasim Akram Malik, an accused in the 2011 blast near the court’s gate, on a plea that the trial court charge him with conspiracy to wage war against the government.
Justice Sanjeev Khanna and Justice S P Garg sought a response by October 16 from Malik on the National Investigation Agency’s plea challenging the trial court’s September 4 order refusing to frame charges against him under penal provisions for waging war against the government.
Fifteen people were killed and 79 injured in the September 7, 2011 blast outside Gate No5 of the high court complex.
NIA Special Judge H S Sharma had found sufficient evidence against Malik under penal provisions dealing with criminal conspiracy, murder and attempt to murder and various terror charges but not waging war against the government.
The NIA in its plea in the high court said: “Direct the special court to frame charges under sections 121 (waging war against the government of India), 121-A (conspiracy to commit waging war against the government), 122 (collecting arms with intention of waging war against the government), 123 (concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage war) of Indian Penal Code and under sections 3 and 5 of the Explosive Substances Act, 1908.”
The trial court had dropped the charges dealing with waging war against the government and conspiracy and collecting arms to wage a war against the country.
The investigating agency said that the terrorist attack was prompted by an intention to strike at the sovereign authority of the government.