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Reuters
Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving suspected gunman in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, has been hanged.
Updated at 2:47 a.m. ET: India hanged Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the only militant to have survived the 2008 attacks on the financial capital Mumbai, officials said Wednesday.
In August, India's Supreme Court upheld Kasab's death sentence over the attack on a string of targets in Mumbai that killed 166 people. Kasab, 25, was a Pakistani national. He was executed at 7:30 a.m. local time.
The execution at Yerawada Prison in Pune, near Mumbai, came just hours after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected a mercy plea by Kasab, who had said he belonged to the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
It was the first time a capital sentence had been carried out in India since 2004.
Many foreigners, some of India's wealthy business elite, and poor train commuters were killed by 10 Pakistani gunmen in a three-day rampage through some of Mumbai's best-known landmarks, including two luxury hotels and a Jewish center.
Kasab was filmed walking through Mumbai's main train station carrying an AK-47 assault rifle and a knapsack on his back. Nearly 60 people were gunned down in the crowded station.
In footage obtained by NDTV in India, Kasab told an investigator that his father had encouraged him to join with the rebels.
The investigator: “Son, who asked you to come here?”
Kasab: “My father did. He told me, son, we are very poor.”
The investigator interrupted, surprised: “Your father?”
Kasab continued: “He said, ‘You will live and learn just like these people do. It is not difficult. We will also get money. We will be rid of our poverty. Your brothers and sisters can get married. Son, you will live comfortably like these people do.”
His father told the Times of India, however, “I don’t sell my sons.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
Warped demented Islamists are terminally insane and need to be put down like the rabid dogs that they are.
Too bad they die thinking some kind of paradise awaits them and not knowing the real truth.
They need to hang the whole family. Afterword's they should cut off their heads so they can't find their way to heaven. I believe that has something to do with heaven. Castrate the men also. If they understand they won't be able to do anything when the get their 7 virgins they may change their minds about how soon they want to get there.
How many people did he kill in that station with his AK45? Yet when the time came to man up for what he did, he blamed his father, povery etc. and asked for mercy, mercy he didn't show the poor Indian people he killed! I'm usually not in favor of the death penalty but in this case, I have no problem with it.
Kasab was filmed walking through Mumbai's main train station carrying an AK-47 assault rifle and a knapsack on his back. Nearly 60 people were gunned down in the crowded station
Thanks Starbuck, I read the article but my point was that there were several gunmen killing people over the course of 3 days so we don't really know how many he actually killed. He may have killed more than the 60 in the station with his AK47!
The dog dies but its master is still alive
No, this flea has died, but others infest the dog.
Needed to be hung by his balls
while the monsters that planned this terrorist attack sit safe in Pakistan
Rot in hell you islamic piece of @!$%#...he is now my favorite kind of islamist..a dead one..to hell with all islamic scum around the world
It has taken four years for this young man to reach the end of the consequences of his actions.Yet others who are survivors and relatives of the dead, must continue to live the rest of their lives with the consequences of his and the other rebels actions.
We may think at times perhaps, we don't have much of an impact in the world. Yet as this young man has demonstrated, sometimes if we make poor choices, the results can echo far beyond our own lives.
I suspect his father never imagined, if he encouraged his son to join the rebels. that this would be the resulting nightmare, instead of wonderful outcome dreamed. Perhaps he was trying to live life through his son. Whatever happened, this young man chose his own fate by his course of actions. His father must also live with the results and he is still poor. In fact more so. For he has lost his son, who could have chosen a better life and helped his father out. Instead of reaping sorrow and death.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.. NO 72 whores in heaven for you. Pig
Well, Dad's advice doesn't always lead to glory, now does it. This article made little sense, but glad to see a rabid dog went down.
The Earth is now a better place.
Our corrupt nation. He didn't brought AK47 with him all the way from Pakistan, did he? Why there are no arrests so far? Our intelligence were high or what the fuk happned? I believe matter has been investigated for long enough. I am talking about the betrayers from our side. It is simply impossible to do something like this without help of local nationals. SO where are the others?
Stop the hate please. I am of Ind descent but I forgive this man, though what he did was cruel. I do not believe in capital punishment...though the families affected might think differently. He should have been given a chance to be imprisoned without parole, or death. Not just make the decision for him by the State. It is so sad all around. Think that this man was once young: a little boy with dreams, hopes and toys. What went wrong in his upbringing? Think of a grieving mother, sister...maybe a girl friend or a wife. What went wrong in their life? So sad all around! I hope those families that lost loved ones because of him are now secure, moved on and their lives are good. I hope this man apologized and asked for forgiveness, And lets forgive him.
Dr. MS: I understand and admire your sympathy for "this man" and his family but where is your sympathy and empathy for the families of those he decided deserved to die by indiscriminately shooting them? At least in his case he was given a chance to plead his case and even given the opportunity to say good-bye to his family and maybe even ask for forgiveness from his family and from the family members of those he killed. He didn't give those he killed the same; instead, those he killed woke up that day may have or may not have said "I love you" to those they did love; did not have a chance to say good-bye to their family members; and maybe even asked for forgiveness for some dumb mistake they may have made in their lives. Instead "this man" took it upon himself to end those lives without a second thought.
I would echo your statements "Think that [those he killed were] once young: a little boy [or girl] with dreams, hopes and toys...Think of a grieving mother, sister[, brother]...maybe a girl friend [or boy friend] or a wife [or husband and maybe even children]." I guess you have never lost a loved one to a random act of violence and can't empathize with those who did in this case. I don't think that if I were in their shoes I could, as you "hope" be "secure, moved on and their lives are good" nor do I think that I could "forgive him." I guess you are a much better man than I am because I just don't think I could. My thoughts and wishes for peace go out to those still having to live with the consequences of "this man's" actions.
For those of you that think that capitol punishment is torture.
Torture is a child growing up without a murdered parent.
Torture is parents living with the murder of their child.
Torture is friends and families dealing with the murder of a friend.
Torture is a wife not having a murdered husband around to grow old with.
Torture is watching someone murder your parents.
Torture is living with the memories of having seen someone murdered.
What I have discovered about forgiveness against a deliberate act: Forgiveness is just permission to do the act one more time (at least). Evil never repents, it just continues until it is stopped--permanently. I have learned the hard way and I no longer give permission.
(Accidents and deliberate acts are too different things. This crime was no accident.)
==This statement bubblegummed, so if it posts twice, please ignore the extra post.--
.
i am always saddened when the death penalty is used - it is a barbaric way to punish a crime and makes the person a martyr to his cause - it is not that i am soft on crime - it is too good for the criminal to die quickly - he should be put in solitary and forgotten by the world - having a few decades to think of what he has done and know that his birth was a mistake and his life was wasted is a far more effective punishment
Mind boggling - your photo caption says: "Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving suspected gunman in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, has been hanged."
Suspected gunman? He was filmed, he admitted it, he was convicted and NBC say 'suspected'! What a joke
One less vermin on the face of the planet. We keep trying to chop the head off the hydra, but the only way to kill it or keep it from multiplying is by burning the neck stump, too. So many senseless deaths have sprung from the poisoned well of radical Islam. Oh well, like I said, one less.
I'm glad the Indians didn't buy the oh-woe-is-me story about a poor upbringing and being poverty stricken that caused all this monstrosity. Come to think of it, the Indians are absolutely the wrong ones to be telling this sob story to. Maybe the lawyers, juries and judges here in the US should take note of that little fact, as well. Evil is evil, no matter how you cut it--or in this case, hang it.
Brain washed for a retarded cause? His father gave him the death sentence. To bad it could not have been carried out before he MURDERED innocent people.
I'm not sure why Tea Traitors aren't providing a show of support for this convict. After all, he died because he engaged in armed resistance against a tyrannical government -- exactly what many Tea Traitors have been threatening to do in their own country after Obama's re-election. Don't Tea Traitors at least have the decency to recognize one of their own in spirit?
Al Kyda- Open your eyes,THINK about what the Tea Party stands for. I forgot, liberal like yourself can't think. You need the gov't to tell you. What's wrong with people who wants this country's leaders to go by our Constitution. Who wants smaaller gov't., one that is under control and listens to the people. These politicians work for the people who put them in that position. They decide what's good for the people. Most of these idiots (both Democrats and Republicans) do not have any common sense. My goden retriever is smarter. I do not need them to think for me.
Al Kyda. you are a typical liberal. You can't think for yourself, you need the gov't to tell you what you can or cannot do. Obama is a friggin joke. Why he got re-elected I don't know. Wait, I do know, all the promises to the lazy people who want the handouts and freebies. The people who need the gov't to lead them like sheep. The Tea Party are people who want less gov't in their lives and people who want the gov't to rule by the Constitution, get back to basics. Not wrong with that in my book.
Dear NBC , Can you please refer to this guy as 'Terrorist' and not just gunman.
Calling him 'Gunman' is too polite for a mindless criminal who killed 166 people...
To some, he's a terrorist; to others, a freedom fighter. Indeed, I would venture that Teapublibaggers would classify him as the latter.