SC to hear taped talks of Mumbai terror attacks
The Supreme Court on Thursday would hear the intercepted conversation between the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes and their handlers based in Pakistan.
A bench of justices Aftab Alam and C K Prasad decided to hear the recorded talks between the 10 terrorists and their bosses in Pakistan after the Maharashtra government claimed that it was an important evidence to show that the strikes were meticulously pre-planned.
The apex court is hearing an appeal filed by Mohd Ajmal Amir Kasab, sole surviving terrorist, who has been awarded capital punishment in the case.
The Maharashtra government has also challenged the Bombay High Court judgment, acquitting two Indian nationals in the case.
The recorded conversations between terrorists and their handlers would be played out in the presence of counsel from all sides. Former Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam, appearing for the Maharshtra government, said all arrangement would be made to play out the conversations in the court.
According to the prosecution, the intercepts among the 10 terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan established that the terror attack in Mumbai, in which 166 people were killed, was “pre-planned and pre-arranged.”
During the hearing, Subramaniam and special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam claimed that intercepted conversations showed that 26/11 attack in Mumbai was a result of a meticulous planning from across the border. It claimed that the evidence in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case involving Kasab and 9 slain terrorists clearly showed it to be a “pre-meditated” assault on the country’s commercial capital by Pakistani terrorists, guided by their handlers from across the border.
Kasab, 24, represented by amicus curiae senior advocate Raju Ramchandran urged the apex court to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment.
