Mohammed Ajmal Kasab

New Delhi, Aug. 29: The Supreme Court today upheld death by hanging for Mohammed Ajmal Kasab for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

The bench cited the 25-year-old Kasab’s “unrepentant” attitude and his insistence on calling himself a hero and a watan parast (patriotic) Pakistani to justify its decision to award him the extreme penalty reserved for the rarest of rare cases.

Kasab, lodged in Mumbai’s high-security Arthur Road jail, can now file a review petition to the top court should he so want. A review goes to the same bench. In the alternative, he can file a mercy plea with the governor or the President. He cannot be hanged till these legal options are exhausted.

Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said if Kasab did indeed file a mercy petition, it would be disposed of in the minimum possible time.

The Supreme Court, in confirming the death penalty awarded to him by the high court, referred to the 26/11 attacks as a terrorist attack from across the border.

“It has a magnitude of unprecedented enormity on all scales. The conspiracy behind the attack was as deep and large as it was vicious. The preparation and training for the execution was as thorough as the execution was ruthless. In terms of loss of life and property and, more important, in its traumatising effect, this case stands alone, or it is at least the very rarest of rare to come before this court since the birth of the Republic. Therefore, it should also attract the rarest of rare punishment,” the court said.

The bench also alluded to another sad and disturbing part in this conspiracy — the attempt to blame Indian Muslims for the attacks. It dubbed the “deception, the falsehood that the terrorists were Indian Muslims coming from Hyderabad and connected with some fictitious organisation called Mujaheddin, Hyderabad Deccan” as “one of the most ominous and distressing parts of the conspiracy”.

If the appellant had not been caught alive and the investigating agencies had not been able to unravel the conspiracy fully and in all its devious ways, the terrorists might have passed as Indian Muslims and that would have led to devastating short-term and equally debilitating long-term consequences, the court said.

“It would have caused a cleavage of distrust and suspicion between communities and disturbed the communal peace and harmony of the country. It is not impossible that conflagrations would have erupted in different parts of the country which the governments would have found difficult to contain.”

“The deception was ominous because it aimed at destabilising Indian society and its governments. But it was equally distressing for being so deeply untruthful. Indian Muslims may have a long list of grievances against the establishment. Some of the grievances may be fanciful, some may be of their own making and some may be substantive. Nevertheless, no Indian Muslim would even think of venting his grievance like an animal, killing, maiming and wounding innocent people; his own countrymen. This is because he is not only loyal to his faith and community but equally loves his country and fellow countrymen.”