Mumbai, March 9: Ajmal Kasab may be left wondering what the charges against him are unless lawyers end their boycott of him.

A Mumbai court that today fixed the 26/11 trial for March 23 refused the gunman an Urdu version of the chargesheet, presented on February 25.

Magistrate N.N. Shrimangale said copies of the chargesheet in English and Marathi had been given to Kasab and two other accused, but since “the language of the courts in Maharashtra is Marathi, there is no provision to provide… a copy in Urdu”.

Kasab appeared in the court through a video-link. “He spoke in Urdu to confirm his full name and to say he did not understand the charge-sheet,” special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said. The two other accused, Indians Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, made similar appeals but in vain.

“The judge felt it was a ploy to delay proceedings,” said Nikam. “I opposed the convicts’ petition. Their lawyers are familiar with all the languages in which the charge-sheet has been filed.”

Ansari and Ahmed have lawyers but Kasab has none. Police had promised Kasab an Urdu version when they filed the 11,280-page chargesheet.

The trial will be heard by the special court of judge M.L. Tahilyani in a high-security courtroom being set up inside Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail, where Kasab will mark time in an air-conditioned cell from next fortnight. The state government is building a 20ft bomb, bullet and chemical weapons-proof tunnel, at Rs 2 crore, to transfer him directly from his cell to the courtroom.