Home minister Sushil Shinde told NDTV that even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other cabinet ministers did not know about the decision to hang Ajmal Kasab — like everybody else, they learnt from television that he had already been hanged. The highlights of Shinde’s interview:onia Gandhi was not part of the decision to hang Kasab, nor was the cabinet. It was “routine” home department work.he file (from the President’s secretariat saying he had rejected the mercy petition) came on November 5 but Shinde was in Rome for an Interpol meeting. “I saw it on November 7”.hinde had earlier forwarded the file to the President on October 16 without remarks (that is, without advising that Kasab should be hanged).“It is my nature to keep (my) work a secret. I have a police background,” Shinde said.“We did not call this ‘Operation X’. I don’t know where that term (used on some TV channels) came from.” In keeping with the theme of secrecy surrounding everything about Kasab, his identity remained “C-7096” throughout his prison term. Almost all official files, including the dossier for his hanging, used the number instead of the name.asab was given this number by Arthur Road jail authorities in Mumbai. Kasab arrived in Mumbai with his nine comrades on a Wednesday — November 26, 2008 — and has been hanged on a Wednesday too, exactly 208 weeks later.ollywood actor Anupam Kher, who featured in a movie on terrorism titled A Wednesday, received a tweet from a fan that said: “What coincidence, Ajmal Kasab hanged on Wednesday and your movie A Wednesday dealing on the same topic!” The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) team of 200 commandos that had guarded Kasab at Arthur Road jail since March 2009 will now be called back by the paramilitary force, which protects the India-China border.ources said the ITBP spent more than Rs 34 crore guarding Kasab, at Rs 77 lakh a month, adding that these figures did not include the Maharashtra police’s and jail authorities’ expenses. The squad was armed with under-barrel grenade launchers and high-precision weapons and ammunition.
Monday, 05 May 2025
