Prosecution to appeal against acquittal, says Chidambaram

Prosecution had indicated that it will appeal against the acquittal, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

Earlier on Monday after the judgment, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam had stated that prosecution had evidence to show Ansari and Ahmed were notorious terrorists and active members of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and “not passive sleepers”. 

Rejecting the Leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley’s contention that new evidence rules and legal infrastructure was required to deal with terror attacks, he said Kasab was convicted not on the basis of his confessions but on the evidence – both oral and technical – furnished by the prosecution.

Chidambaram said that the terrorists’ journey from Karachi to Mumbai was accurately reconstructed using GPS data. The investigators also retrieved data from severely damaged cell phones used by the terrorists.

Within minutes of the attack, the calls made by the terrorists were intercepted by the Indian agencies. “We proved the voice samples from our end in the court,” he said, wondering what else a new legislation – mooted by Jaitley – would achieve.

Since 26/11, India has remained terror-free barring the attack on German Bakery in Pune on 13th February this year. Chidambaram said that the government had specific intelligence on Pune attacks and three advisories were sent to the German Bakery by Pune police. “But they took it (advisory) lightly and did not even have the basic security infrastructure in place,” he said.
D H News Service