Kasab hangs

Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving perpetrator of the 2008 terror strikes that left 166 people dead in Mumbai, has been executed in an operation marked by secrecy and a rare decisiveness on the part of the Congress-led government.
Kasab was hanged and buried in Pune’s Yerwada jail on Wednesday morning, five days before the fourth anniversary of the attack, after the President rejected his mercy petition.
One of the 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives who seized soft targets — including two iconic hotels along with a Jewish centre — and left behind a trail of blood and terror, Kasab had become the face of the 26/11 attacks. With his execution after a fair trial, and burial in accordance with Islamic rites, India has sought to send out a clear message to the international community and pile up pressure on Pakistan to act against the masterminds and handlers of the 26/11 carnage.
Announcing the execution, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said the event demonstrated that the rule of law exists in India. In New Delhi, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said the date and timing of the terrorist’s execution were decided by the court.
The decision to hang Kasab to death was shared only with the ministers on the Cabinet Committee on Security and Chavan.  The secrecy over the execution, sources in the government said, was prompted by fears that Lashkar and its associates in India could revert to terrorist acts to avert the inevitable. According to people familiar with the matter, a suggestion to bury Kasab at sea — as the US did in the case of Osama bin Laden — was rejected in favour of Yerwada jail as many leaders were against imitating the US. The government expects the execution will put the spotlight on Pakistan, which is yet to take even baby steps towards starting the trial of the accused currently lodged in Pakistan’s prisons. It also hopes that Western countries, which are in possession of proof of involvement of Pakistan’s semi-rogue spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence, will lean on Islamabad to bring the perpetrators of 26/11 to justice.
Modi, expectedly, used the issue to question the delay in executing Afzal Guru, who led the attack on Parliament a decade ago. Afzal — a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist convicted of the December 2001 attack — was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 2004.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, who spoke on the execution of Kasab to the media, said India attempted to inform Pakistan of its decision before the sentence was carried out. “We attempted to convey to Pakistan Foreign Office about the execution, but since the messages were not accepted, we indicated it,” said Khurshid, adding the government had also taken the necessary steps to inform Kasab’s family of the decision. “We now hope the commission in Pakistan would conduct its investigations in the same impartial manner that the legal process was followed in India,” the minister said. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, which orchestrated the attack, proclaimed Kasab as a ‘hero’ and threatened reprisals for hanging him. “He is a hero and will inspire other fighters to follow his path,” a news agency report quoted an unnamed commander of the Pakistani militant group as saying.