Indian officials on Tuesday submitted a clemency plea to the president by the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, opening the final appeal stage against his death sentence.
Pakistan-born Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, currently in a Mumbai jail, was one of the 10 gunmen who laid siege to the city in attacks that lasted nearly three days and killed 166 people.
“Now it is for the president of India to take a final call as he holds the supreme authority in this matter,” a senior home ministry official told AFP, requesting anonymity.
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 appealed in the Supreme Court claiming he did not receive a fair trial, but his petition was struck down in August.
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.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 24th, 2012.
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he should be hanged as many times as the number of people he killed.
In the Holy Qur’an, God begins to deal with the issue of terrorism by teaching Muslims never to become terrorists in the first place. Two of the very first verses of our Holy Book say: ‘Al-Fitnatu ashad-du minal qatl’ – meaning that in the sight of Allah, ‘persecution, or making people constantly fear for their lives, is much worse than killing’. And also: ‘Lâ ikrâha fid-dîn’ – ‘There shall be no compulsion in religion’, that is to say, that no one has the right to force others into complying with their demands or compelling others to follow their line of thinking. Allah Almighty warns the believers again and again that they should never abandon Him, the source of all goodness. Allah Almighty reminds us that it is those who have abandoned Him and thrown away all good, and divested themselves of every shred of human decency, that are the ones who will eventually resort to terrorizing others, forcing them into complying with their demands. The believers are repeatedly reminded that they would lose Allah Almighty’s love and His favors if they ever began to behave in that way.
That's a bit rich Kasab considering you killed so many people and you were on the CCTV. Personally I'm not really sure you are Pakistani either. There are millions of runaway youths in both India and Pakistan and they can easily be indoctrinated as they are poor and have no direction, roaming around aimlessly which is a real tragedy.