Viveka Kumar, School of Law, Humanities And Social Science, Rastriya Raksha University
I. CASE NOTE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL APPEAL NOS.1899-1900 OF 2011
MOHAMMED AJMAL MOHAMMAD AMIR KASAB @ ABU MUJAHID … APPELLANT
VERSUS
STATE OF MAHARASHTRA … RESPONDENT
Bench: J Aftab Alam, Chandramauli Kr. Prasad
Bar (Appellate team): Mr. Raju Ramachandran, Mr. Gaurav Agrawal and his team.
(Respondent team): Mr. Subramanium, Mr. Ujjawal Nikkam, the Spl. PP and a team of juniors. Jurisdiction: Criminal appellate jurisdiction
(II) FACTS OF THE CASE On the night of 26 November 2008, a band of 10 well-armed terrorists, who had set out by boat from Karachi in Pakistan, launched an onslaught on India’s commercial capital, Mumbai, slaughtering 166 people and holding the city in fear and thrall for three days.1 Those killed in Mumbai included 25 foreign nationals, which immediately made the attacks more than a bilateral India-Pakistan issue. The main targets of the terrorists, who were organized in five two-man teams, were two luxury hotels, the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi-Trident; the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, a railway station heavily used by both local commuters and long-distance travellers; a Jewish cultural centre, Chabad House, located in a building called Nariman House; and Café Leopold, a popular restaurant patronized by foreign tourists as well as locals. Other targets attacked included the Cama Hospital (apparently by mistake), a petrol pump, the vicinity of the Metro Cinema and two taxis, one of which blew up far from the remaining targets.
The 10 terrorists who participated directly in the attacks, nine were killed. The lone individual captured, Mohammed Ajmal Amir “Kasab”, is the source of considerable information about what happened. Investigation had completed on 11 November 2012 a special court issued kasabs death warrant and hanged tro death on November 21 2012. On the Indian side, despite a history of terrorist attacks, relatively lax security and inadequate intelligence have facilitated the regular targeting of Mumbai, with major attacks claiming 257 lives in the 1993 serial bombing of 13 buildings and 186 lives in the bombing of seven trains in July 2006.
