Ajmal - The Truth ( Final - Part V )

PART V

The Mumbai police control room becomes a war zone

March 20, 2009


26/11 Mumbai Attacked, one of the first books on last winter's murderous acts of terror, explains the reality behind the attacks. It reiterates the chilling reality that India is under grave threat and the clock is ticking before the next big attack.

In the concluding part of a five-part series, we bring to you an exclusive excerpt written by journalist Ashish Khetan on how the Mumbai police broke Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist in the attacks, immediately after his arrest and got vital information.
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The Confession
The crime branch of the Mumbai police -- a specialised department in neutralising and investigating organised crime as well as intricate cases that are beyond the competence of local police stations -- has a staff of 150 experienced detectives. The entire bureau is headed by a joint commissioner of police. Since June 2007 the joint commissioner of the crime branch was Rakesh Maria.

A tall and broad-shouldered man, every strand of greying hair in place, Maria was known to be a workaholic. But on November 26 he left for the day at 8.50 pm, two hours before his usual time. Maria wanted to spend some time with his twenty-one-year-old son who was leaving that night for Ahmednagar to participate in an inter-university championship.

At 9.40 pm Maria's son left home. Ten minutes later, as he was getting ready to retire to bed, he received a call from the police control room: armed gunmen had opened indiscriminate fire at the CST station killing dozens of commuters. By the time he got into his car, reports of firing at Leopold Caf'e, at the Taj Mahal hotel and at the Trident-Oberoi hotels had also poured in.

As he asked his driver to head towards Mumbai police headquarters, the commissioner of police, Hasan Gafoor called and instructed Maria to take charge of the police control room. At 10.22 pm Maria reached the control room. By the time he walked in there, the command centre of Mumbai police had turned into a war zone.

Dozens of telephone lines and wireless communication channels were buzzing like bees. Beads of sweat were falling off the foreheads of police personnel fielding calls from the public, coordinating among the 45,000 city police personnel and communicating with eighty-six police stations and senior officers spread across Mumbai. A few gunmen had simultaneously attacked different sites throughout the city.

Dozens had already died while hundreds of injured needed immediate medical aid. It seemed the city was at war. A giant screen was showing the important city landmarks and locations of over 3,000 police vans patrolling in different areas. Maria started mobilising the police personnel, dispatching police vans to the troubled spots. Around 10.35 pm, reports came that a bomb had gone off in a speeding taxi on the Western Express Highway, close to the Santacruz airport.

So powerful was the explosion that the head of the taxi driver got severed from the torso and after shooting thirty feet up in the air, got stuck in the branches of a tree. Five minutes later at 10.40 pm another call came that a second bomb had exploded, again in a taxi, this time in Wadi Bunder, approximately 25 km from the location of the first blast.

Memories of the 1993 serial blasts were refreshed in Maria's mind. How many more bombs were waiting to go off? Two suspicious looking bags outside the Taj and one bag outside the Trident hotel had already been sighted. Maria instructed all police stations to comb their areas. Bomb disposal squads were dispatched to different sites.

Then reports of police casualties started trickling in. At around 11.25 pm Maria got the call that Additional Commissioner Sadanand Date, who had followed the terrorists into Cama Hospital, was injured, while a constable accompanying him had been killed. Between 10.29 pm and 12.11 am Maria diverted over 200 police personnel towards Cama Hospital.

During that time (Hemant) Karkare, (Ashok) Kamte, (Vijay) Salaskar and others had headed towards the hospital. Not far from there, at the CST station, were three SRPF striking forces, one RCP (Riot Control Police) striking force of around twenty personnel, eight mobile vans, one QRT and one SOS team. In addition, four DCPs and four senior police inspectors were also in the area. But unfortunately, the reinforcements never moved inside the lane where Karkare and the others were waiting.

At 12.25 am, Maria received a wireless message from Arun Jadhav, Salaskar's bodyguard. He said terrorists had hijacked the police vehicle in which he and Karkare and the others were travelling, that they had 'injured' everybody and finally abandoned the vehicle outside Vidhan Bhavan with him inside it.

Jadhav told Maria that the terrorists had then hijacked a black Honda City. Yet somehow, in that three-minute communication, Jadhav stricken with panic failed to tell Maria that the terrorists had killed Karkare and the others. It was only after Additional Commissioner Parambir Singh reached Vidhan Bhavan that Maria was informed about the outcome of the episode.

A little later a senior police inspector of DB Marg police station informed the control room that they had killed one and caught another terrorist alive.

Throughout the night Maria coordinated with the MARCOS, then the NSG, placing dozens of calls to the Maharashtra chief secretary, the Western Navy Command, the Union home ministry, and the Army headquarters in Delhi, besides numerous other offices and bureaucrats.

At around 1.30 am Maria was told to interrogate Ajmal Kasab who was at the Nair Hospital. After Ghadge's interrogation was over, Maria had already been updated by the DB Marg police about the revelations made by Kasab.

Maria sent one of his trusted detection officers Prashant Marde to Nair Hospital with the brief to just clarify four points: 1) How had they come; 2) How many of them had entered the city; 3) What weapons did they have with them; and 4) What task had each terrorist been assigned? At around 4.30 am, as Maria was busy arranging transport to pick up the NSG commandos from the airport, Marde called and briefed him on the four crucial points.

Based on the details provided by DB Marg police and Marde, Maria briefed the NSG in his office at around 5.30-6 am.



Accounting for the bombs the terrorists carried

March 20, 2009


At around 9.30 am a police motorcade carrying Kasab turned into the police headquarters. A posse of two dozen policemen armed with assault rifles escorted Kasab into the crime branch interrogation room. Maria was waiting for him.

Though he had been told Kasab was not more than twenty-one years old, he expected a tougher guy, at least in looks. Maria had imagined a withered and rugged appearance. Not a baby-faced, smooth-skinned, blushing jihadi. Kasab, the fidayeen, looked like a kid. With the beck of his finger Maria signalled Kasab to sit on the ground. Leaning forward, his six-feet-one-inch frame towering over Kasab, Maria said, 'There is no point in hiding things. We know how to wrench the truth out of you. And you don't think I or anybody here gives a damn about your injuries. So you better start singing now.'

'Sahab, I have already told you that I am a Pakistani and I joined the LeT one and a half years back. As far as other things are concerned I have explained everything to your guys,' said Kasab, sighing and groaning, exhibiting fatigue and pain.

'I don't care for your pain. You look in my eyes and tell me how many of you have landed in Mumbai,' growled Maria.

'We were just ten of us. We came by sea and then split into five teams. Ismail and I were part of one team. The other four teams went to the Taj, the Oberoi and the Chabad House. Abu Rehman Bada, Abu Ali, Abu Soheb and Abu Umer had been assigned the job of the Taj. Abu Rehman Chhota and Abu Fahad were given the task of storming the Oberoi. And Abu Aakasha and Abu Umar had gone to the Chabad House,' Kasab confirmed. He also gave the physical characteristics of each terrorist and a description of their clothes.

'Where are your local logistics providers? Did you get in touch with anyone after reaching Mumbai?' Maria just could not believe that the ten had pulled off an attack of this magnitude without local support.

'No. We did not know anyone in Mumbai. We had no names or numbers. We were just told about our targets. Once we landed, we took taxis and went straight to our targets.'

'What time did you land?'

'Can't tell exactly. But it was somewhere around 8.15-8.30 pm.'

'Then why did the attack at the CST begin at 9.40 pm, an hour after you landed?'

'After landing we had a chat among ourselves. We decided that since we all had to reach different locations and we might get traffic on our way, we would begin the attack only after 9.40 pm. We were sure that all of us would reach our respective targets within an hour and so that was the time decided to begin the attack. Ismail and I had to wait for ten to fifteen minutes before we got a taxi. Ismail and I were the first ones to catch ones, the others were still waiting for the cabs when we left. We got off at the station after which I went to a toilet there while Ismail waited outside. I wanted to pee real bad. Then I came out and waited another few minutes. After my watch showed 9.40 pm we removed our guns from the bags and opened fire.'

'What were the arms and ammunition you all were carrying?'

'We had one AK-47, one pistol, two magazines for the pistol, six to eight magazines of AK-47 and ten to twelve hand grenades on each of us. Besides, we had a lot of loose cartridges of AK which we did not count,' said Kasab. He had earlier told Ghadge that each had eight hand grenades and had made no mention of the loose cartridges. To Maria, however, he gave a higher figure for the ammunition.

Twice Maria posed the question differently but Kasab gave the same figure: one AK-47, one pistol, ten to twelve hand grenades, and six to eight magazines.

'Don't you think you are forgetting something here?' Maria narrowed his eyes, moving his face closer to Kasab's.

For a few moments Kasab just stared listlessly into Maria's eyes, his face so close to Maria's that he could not look elsewhere. And then he said, 'Sorry, I forgot to mention it. We brought bombs as well. Each of us had one bomb, which we carried in a separate bag. We wanted to plant these bombs on the periphery of our targets so that when the police arrive they would get killed by the explosion.'

Maria finally had a figure on the total number of bombs that had entered the city the previous night. His mind started calculating.

Seven bombs had already exploded -- one each in two taxis, one on the sixth floor at the Taj, one outside the Trident hotel, one inside the Oberoi, one at a petrol pump near Chabad House and one on the staircase of Chabad House. Two had been defused -- one on the promenade facing the Gateway and one in a bylane on the back side of the Taj. But there was still one bomb left. Where was the tenth bomb? Maria's head started reeling.

'Where is the bomb that you were carrying?'

'I had put it in the cab we took for VT station, under the seat of the driver. Ismail sat next to the driver while I sat at the back. On our way I connected the wires, set the timer and pushed it under the seat.'

The riddle of two bomb explosions -- one at Vile Parle and the other at Wadi Bunder -- on 26 November was slowly unravelling. Laxminarayan Goyal from Hyderabad who had come to Mumbai on business took the same taxi from CST. At around 10.35 pm, when his taxi reached Vile Parle, the bomb placed by Kasab went off, killing both Goyal and the taxi driver. When the police reached the spot they found just a few rods of the engine section left of the taxi. The taxi driver had just jumped a traffic signal. Had he, like other vehicles, waited for the signal to turn green, the death toll would have been much higher. Around the same time another bomb placed in another taxi had blasted at Nal Bazar in Wadi Bunder, killing a woman passenger and the taxi driver.

'If you wanted to kill policemen why did you place the bomb in the taxi?'

'We thought that taxis would only move around in South Mumbai and their explosions would kill the approaching policemen.'

'Where did Ismail leave his bomb?' Maria asked, as that was the only one unaccounted for.

'He left it at VT station. I don't know where exactly he left the bag but it was somewhere at the station.'

But the bomb had not exploded. It was finally recovered six days later, on the evening of 3 December, when railway personnel were sorting out the 150-odd bags left behind by the dead, the injured and other passengers who had been caught in Ismail's and Kasab's line of fire. All the bags had been dumped by the railway police in a parcel room on the first floor of the CST. After Kasab's revelation the Mumbai police tried to locate the black and white bag as described by him but they could not find it. Luckily, the timer of the bomb had malfunctioned and it had not caused further damage.




Kasab's second grilling in the early hours of November 27

March 20, 2009


How did you reach Mumbai? I want to know each and everything that happened on the high seas. Take me through your entire sea journey. Don't cut the long story short.'

'All ten of us had been kept in isolation for the last three months in an LeT safe house in Azizabad, on the outskirts of Karachi. On 22 November, we woke up at the break of dawn and were taken to a creek area in a jeep with tinted glasses. At around 8 am we all got on to a boat that was waiting for us at the shore. After about forty minutes of sailing we spotted a larger boat called Al-Husseini which I was told belonged to Lakhvi chacha. There were seven LeT mujahids who were already on board. We were told that the arms and ammunition were already there on Al-Husseini. All of us were then escorted into a cabin in the basement where we spent the next thirty hours. We were told to shave and be ready. On the 23rd at around 3 pm, we felt a thud as if something had come and struck against our boat. An Indian fishing trawler had docked next to our boat. One mujahid came running to the basement and told us to hurry up. It was time to leave.

'When we went up we saw four Indian fishermen being hauled from their trawler on to our boat. We hopped on to the Indian trawler. The sailor of the trawler was still on board. Our bags containing arms and ammunition and ration for the journey were also transferred into the Indian boat. A rubber speedboat and a foot pump were also hauled on the Indian boat. We all hugged the Al-Husseini crew members and started our journey towards Mumbai. Ismail was our group leader and he assigned us on board duties. Nine of us including Ismail performed watch duties in two-hour shifts. Only Imran Babar was exempted from watch duties as he had to cook. We kept a log book to make entries of our work shifts.

'Finally on 26 November at around 4 pm Ismail told us we were now very close to Mumbai. We waited till it turned dark. At around 7 pm we inflated the rubber boat with the foot pump and transferred our bags on to the boat. After sailing for over an hour we reached the fishermen colony at Badhwar Park at around 8.15-8.30 pm.'

'How did the LeT crew members manage to intercept the Indian fishing trawler, Kasab?' Maria probed.

'Sahab, I don't know exactly. But from the snatches of conversation I overheard while crossing over to the Indian boat it appeared that the Al-Husseini crew members waved a broken engine belt towards the Indian boat and asked for help. As the Indian trawler docked next to us, they kidnapped four Indian crew members and transferred them to Al-Husseini.'

'Who sailed the Indian trawler to Mumbai?'

'Amar Sinh Solanki, the Indian sailor, Ismail and Abu Umer. The three of them sailed and navigated the boat to Mumbai.'

'Where is Amar Sinh Solanki?'

'Ismail and Shoaib killed Solanki just before we boarded the rubber boat. Once we spotted Mumbai from the high seas we waited in the waters for some time. As it grew darker Ismail called up somebody higher up in the LeT and told him that we were only 4 nautical miles off from Mumbai. Speaking in coded language Ismail asked what we should do with the Indian sailor. The LeT boss on the other end said, "Humne to chaar bakre kha liye hain, tum bhi apna bakra kha lo." It was the coded message to kill the sailor, Amar Sinh Solanki. Ismail and Shoaib killed him by slitting his throat and dumped his body in the engine room.'

Maria immediately relayed the important information to the Indian Coast Guard and requested them to look for the Indian fishing trawler.

'Tell me how Ismail knew he was just 4 nautical miles off Mumbai. What navigation tools was he using?' Maria resumed the interrogation.

'We used a GPS to navigate. We were all trained to operate the GPS. But throughout the journey it was Ismail who operated it and he also spoke to the LeT bosses on his satellite phone.'

'Where are the GPS and the sat phone you used on the seas?' Maria enquired.

'I was the safe keeper of the sat phone and the GPS. But as we were lowering the dinghy into the waters another fishing boat came very close to us. We got scared and thought it might be the Indian Navy. Quickly, we loaded our bags on the boat and set off towards Mumbai. In the hurry I forgot Ismail's sat phone and GPS behind on the Indian trawler. Halfway into the journey Ismail suddenly remembered the sat phone and the GPS. We deliberated if we should go back to fetch it but then decided against it and kept sailing towards Mumbai.'

Halting the interrogation, Maria again left room to update the Coast Guard about the new information.

'Kasab. Tell me everything you know about the LeT,' said Maria on entering the room.

'Sahab, I don't know much. I joined it only a year and a half back. My father pushed me into this.'

'Look Kasab,' Maria interrupted Kasab before he could go into a spell of self-pity. 'We have had enough of your bleeding heart stories. You have been telling my officers that your father pushed you into this. That you were very poor. That you did not have enough to eat. That you did this just for money. You better stop bluffing now. Because we have arrested a few of your colleagues and they have told us everything, about you, the LeT, your training,' said Maria rubbing his forearms and then puffed his chest with a deep breath.

Two of Maria's detection officers pulled up stools lying in a corner and placing them close to Kasab, encircled him.

'I know everything. But I want to hear it from your mouth,' said Maria, his eyes glinting, a know-all smile playing on his lips. 'I don't like lies, Kasab.' Maria's face suddenly stiffened, the smile disappeared, and his broad jaw tightened up.

For a few seconds Kasab kept staring at Maria. Ghadge had never questioned Kasab's tearjerker narrative. But Maria would have none of it. And now he had some of his colleagues in custody too. Who could it be? Kasab wondered.


Kasab: 'We joined LeT so that we could get arms training for criminal activity'

March 20, 2009


After a brief silence, Kasab began: 'I studied up to fourth standard and then in the year 2000 I dropped out of school and went to Lahore. I stayed there with my brother Afzal who was staying at House No. 12, Galli No. 54, Mohalla Tohidabad, near Yadgar Minar. I did the job of a construction worker till 2005. In between I visited my village many times. Finally in 2005, I quit my job and went back to my village, thinking I would stay there.

'But my father scolded me and I left home and went to Ali Hajveri Darbar at Lahore. It was a kind of shelter home for young homeless boys and the management there used to assist us in finding employment. I found employment with a contractor called Shafiq who was in the catering business. For the next two years I worked with him at his shop called 'Welcome Tent Service'. But the money I earned was never enough. Around this time Shafiq, a friend of mine, and I carried out a few small robberies. We then decided to plan a robbery big enough to fetch us lakhs of rupees in one go, 'Kasab revealed.

The transformation in Kasab's persona was radical. A few hours back he had portrayed himself as a timid, obedient son waylaid by his greedy, selfish father. Now, with the threat of being exposed by fellow terrorists staring him in the face, Kasab unveiled his true side willingly. Yes. He was a labourer and his father was a poor vendor. But it was he who had taken to crime, prompted by his own needs, initiated into the world of violence not by his father but by a criminal friend. An indifferent father was just a ruse to earn sympathy from the police.

'We wanted to acquire weapons. But it was not easy,' Kasab continued. 'After much deliberation we thought we would join the LeT. We thought we would get both weapons and training to operate them. We filled up a few forms and joined the organisation. At Muridke we went through an induction period of twenty-one days. The trainers were very strict and everything from namaz to lunch to dinner happened with clockwork precision. But in the first three weeks we were not trained to operate firearms. I was not enjoying it much but Shafiq said that in the next phase we would be imparted the arms training. After the completion of the first phase, we were taken to a small village in Mansera where we were given initial training of handling AKs, Uzi guns and pistols. We were also given lectures on Islam and Hadith. We were told that our religion was in danger and Muslims were being killed everywhere. That was when I decided I would not go back to robbery but would continue with the LeT.

'I went home in between and returned to participate in a training camp at a hilly area called Chelabandi in PoK. Here we were trained to handle explosives, rocket launchers and mortars. At the end of the three months' training period thirty-two of us were selected by Zaki chacha for waging jihad. Sixteen were sent for some operation, the details of which I don't know. Out of the remaining sixteen, three escaped from the camp. We, the remaining thirteen, were then sent to a training camp at Muridke. Abu Kahfa was our leader. Here we were trained to operate GPS instruments and to navigate boats in the sea. We were conditioned to sail on the high seas for long. We were taught swimming as well. After the training was over I went home to see my mother. After a week I returned to the LeT camp at Muzaffarabad. The thirteen of us were again trained to sail on the seas and navigate boats.

'Zaki chacha then sent six from amongst us for some operation in Kashmir. Three other men then joined us. They had already been mujahids for some time and had done operations elsewhere. One among them was Ismail. He was made the leader of our group. In the second week of September we were shifted to an LeT safe house at Azizabad in Karachi. Here we were told to carry out the Mumbai operation. I was only informed about the VT station attack which was entrusted to me. The operation was initially planned for 27 September but then got delayed, the reasons for which I do not know. We then whiled away our time. We were given the best food and the best clothes. Zaki chacha said we could have anything in the world we wanted before setting out for Mumbai. Initially, we knew each other only by our code names. But soon we told each other our real names, though we were not supposed to. But we bonded well and shared many personal details.'

'So tell me all the real names and the addresses of your accomplices?'

'Ismail's full name is Ismail Khan. He is from Dera Ismail Khan in North West Frontier Province. Abu Ali's real name is Javed. He is around twenty-two years old and he and I come from the same district -- Okara. Abu Fahad's real name is Fahadullah and he too hails from my district. Abu Aakasha is Babar Imran and he is from Multan. I don't know the name of his village. Abu Soheb is Shoaib and he is the youngest among us. He is from village Shakkargarh Naroval in Sialkot. Abu Umar's true name is Nasir and he comes from Faisalabad. Abu Umer too is from Faisalabad. His real name is Nazeer. He is the oldest among us. Abu Rehman Bada is actually Hafiz Arshad and he is from Multan. Abu Rehman Chhota is also from Multan and his true name is Abdul Rehman.' Kasab finally gave away the real names of his group members.

Later, Maria shared these names with the RAW that, through its undercover agents in Pakistan, collected more information on them.

'Who else besides Zaki has trained you?'

'Abu Hamza, Abu Al Qama, Abu Kahfa and Yousuf alias Muzammil were the other trainers.'

'When you were sailing towards Mumbai who all did you speak to on the sat phone from the deck?'

'Ismail did most of the talking. He was speaking to many in the LeT including Muzammil.'

'Who did he make the last conversation with about the five bakras?'

'It was Muzammil.'

'Who provided you the maps of your targets?'

'I don't know. I was just shown a CD of the VT station. I assume others too were shown similar CDs of their respective targets. But we were never told about the LeT operatives active in Mumbai or at other places in India.'

In a few weeks, the crime branch investigation revealed that two LeT terrorists -- Faheem Ansari and Mohammad Sabahuddin -- who were arrested by the UP police earlier that year, on charges of abetting and aiding in another terror case, had provided the maps and the video footage of the CST, the Oberoi, the Taj and Nariman House to their LeT bosses in Pakistan. They were allegedly involved in the killing of seven paramilitary troops in an audacious attack at a CRPF camp in Rampur on 1 January 2008.



When Kasab saw the remains of other terrorists

March 20, 2009


Ansari, originally from Uttar Pradesh but born and brought up in Mumbai, had joined the LeT in 2003 while he was in Dubai. In 2007, he came to Mumbai and stayed there for about three months. Though his parents and brothers were staying in Goregaon he made no contact with them during his entire stay. Ansari later told Maria that he first stayed in a guest house at Grant Road but after a few weeks he had rented a small accommodation. He also told Maria that he wanted to take a place on rent in Colaba but then had to settle at Grant Road as Colaba was very expensive.

Ansari did a reconnaissance of several landmarks in Mumbai including the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Mumbai police headquarters at Crawford Market, the Maharashtra police headquarters in Colaba, the Mahalaxmi temple and the Sidhivinayak temple. He went to the Taj and the Oberoi hotels as a tourist and shot video footage of the interiors. He also captured the CST and the Chabad House on tape. Besides, he hand-drew the maps of all the 26/11 targets. In December 2007, he travelled to Kathmandu, where he met and handed over the material to Bihar-born Sabahuddin. Sabahuddin had also conspired in attacking the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, in December 2005. Ansari then travelled on a Pakistani passport to Karachi and gave the maps to Muzammil as well. Later, when Ansari and Sabahuddin were arrested by the UP ATS in February 2008, several hand-drawn maps of different roads and buildings and installations in Mumbai were recovered from them. But the video footage and maps of the 26/11 targets had already been handed over to the LeT top brass in Pakistan.

'Did you ever meet Hafiz Sayeed, the chief of LeT?'

'Yes. He came and gave sermons during one of our early training sessions. He told us that Muslims worldwide need to rise in jihad against the infidels.'

'What else did Sayeed say in his sermon?' asked Maria.

'He said that we had to fight the war for Allah. He said if we die waging jihad, our faces would glow like the moon. Our bodies would emanate scent. And we would go to paradise.'

'Did you ever have a one-on-one meeting with Sayeed?'

'No. Never. He was a very big man and I was just one of the recruits.'

Maria, of course, knew by now that Kasab was small fry, just a foot soldier, and this was as far as he could take him in the investigation. As Maria got up to leave the room Kasab said, 'Sahab. Will you tell me who have you arrested besides me?'

'You will come to know,' said Maria and left.

Keeping in mind Rakesh Maria's impeccable record in investigating terror-related cases, the Maharashtra government made him the chief investigator of the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai. The 1993 serial bomb blasts and the 2003 Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazar blasts were the other terror cases that had been cracked by Maria. Over the next two months, in coordination with the RAW and IB, Maria analysed the satellite phone, the GPS instruments, the mobile phones, the AK-47 rifles, pistols, hand grenades, and the speedboat, among other things recovered from the scenes of crime.

The speedboat used by the terrorists to cover the last leg of their journey to Mumbai was brand new but was painted yellow to make it look old. The terrorists had also erased the engine number but with the help of forensic experts the police retrieved the original number -- 67 CL-1020015 -- which was manufactured by Yamaha Motor Corporation, Japan, and imported into Pakistan by a company named Business and Engineering Trends, situated at 24, Habibullah Road, Off Davis Road, Lahore. The 9mm pistols recovered from the terrorists bore the trademark and name of Diamond Nedi Frontier Arms Company, Peshawar. The unexploded hand grenades recovered from different places were found to be manufactured by an Austrian company named Arges which had given a franchisee to a Pakistani ordinance factory near Rawalpindi. Similar hand grenades had been recovered from terrorists involved in the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai and the attack on Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001.

The email sent to Indian media houses in the name of an organization called Deccan Mujahideen claiming responsibility for the attack was tracked to a proxy server in Russia. Investigation revealed that the account used to send the email belonged to Zarrar Shah, the communications chief of the LeT who was also in touch with the terrorists on the phone while they were holed up in the two hotels and in Chabad House. It was also revealed that Shah had organised a payment of US $ 238.78 to a New Jersey-based net telephony company named Callphonex to buy a VoIP connection. While buying the net telephony connection Shah used the fake name 'Kharak Singh' purportedly based in India. But the payment was sent by one Javed Iqbal who had a Pakistani passport numbered KC 092481. The connection thus purchased was used to make dozens of telephone calls to the terrorists while they were shedding innocent blood and unleashing the carnage in Mumbai.

The satellite phone used by the terrorists from the high seas was of Thuraya make. It was used to make calls to the LeT higher-ups while the ten terrorists were sailing towards Mumbai.

Over the weeks Maria interrogated Kasab many times. After the first few sessions Maria started speaking to Kasab in Punjabi. (Since Maria's forefathers were from Punjab, he speaks the language very well). One afternoon, about a month after the incident, Maria summoned Kasab in his office.

'Do you want to meet your other colleagues now?' he asked.

'Yes I would like to see them,' Kasab replied.

Maria called a crime branch officer inside his office and told him, 'Please take him to the place where his others friends have been kept. After their meeting bring him back to my office.'

Kasab was driven in a police vehicle to JJ Hospital. As Kasab entered the building he realised it was a hospital. 'Are they all badly injured?' he asked an accompanying police officer. The officer looked at him and said, 'You can see for yourself.'

Kasab was taken to the mortuary and the bodies of all the nine terrorists were slid out. Bodies of Javed and Shoaib were half charred. Nazeer's body was like a frozen mound of charcoal. Ismail's head had been severely damaged due to his bullet injury. Hafiz Arshad's face was almost completely burnt. Fahadullah had been shot through his eye. Nasir and Babar Imran's bodies were riddled with bullets. The faces of the terrorists were twisted, teeth jutting out, and the skin of the face was deathly pale or scalded and burnt. There was a sickening smell in the room. Kasab could not stay there for long. He told the officers he wanted to leave. He was driven back to Maria's office.

As Kasab entered the room Maria asked him, 'So, did you see the glow on their faces and smell the fragrance of roses emanating from their bodies as Hafiz Sayeed had told you?'

Kasab kept staring at the floor. Tears rolled down his face. Maria told a few constables to escort Kasab back into the crime branch lock-up.


Excerpted from 26/11 Mumbai Attacked, Edited by Harinder Baweja, Roli Books, 2009, with the publisher's kind permission.