‘Innocent’ Kasab has been framed, claims defence lawyer

The Mumbai Police are lying, the prosecution is lying, the CCTV footage and DNA tests are lying, and even the 10-year-old witness is lying; the only person who is truthful is Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, an “innocent” Pakistani boy. This is what the Pakistani terrorist’s lawyer KP Pawar said in his final arguments in the 26/11 trial on Thursday.

According to the defence lawyer, the prosecution wanted to show the world that Pakistan was involved in the Mumbai attacks and implicated the only “readily available Pakistani national in jail”.
Kasab had earlier told the court he was arrested from Juhu beach 20 days before the terror attack on November 26, 2008. He had said he was handed over to the crime branch after the attack and implicated in the case.

Pawar said that because it was “very difficult” for the prosecution to get hold of any of the perpetrators of the attack, the investigative agencies framed Kasab because they “wanted to prove Pakistan’s involvement” in the attacks. “Kasab’s presence in the jail provided them a golden opportunity,” Pawar said even as Kasab, dressed in white kurta-pyjama, looked utterly bored and didn’t even raise his head during Pawar’s submissions.

“Karun kela dadhiwala, pakadla mishewala (The bearded man did everything, but the man with the moustache got caught),” Pawar joked.

Pawar said the evidence adduced by the prosecution in the form of photographs, CCTV footages and DNA tests are “improbable” and the eyewitnesses, including 10-year-old Devika Rotawan, are “tutored by the prosecution”.

However, to substantiate his argument, Pawar pointed out the omissions and contradictions in the eye-witness accounts to show they are either “tutored” or “unreliable.”

Pawar also repeated Kasab’s claims that he had given his confession before the magistrate and pleaded guilty before the court under police pressure. “The prosecution has taken advantage of both the confession and plea of guilt of my client,” he said, adding a line from a famous play Toh Me Navhta (It wasn’t me), by Prabhakar Panshikar.

To this, first additional principal judge ML Tahaliyani asked: “Is this a play or for real?”