Taliban vows revenge for Mumbai attacker death

On Wednesday Mohammed Ajmal Kasab (pictured, left), a Pakistani citizen, was hung at 7:30am at a jail in Pune, a city near Mumbai. He was the lone surviving gunman of the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai that left 166 people dead.

In response, the Taliban said on Thursday it would attack Indian targets. Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan, speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, said: “We have decided to target Indians to avenge the killing of Ajmal Kasab.

“If they don’t return his body to us or his family we will capture Indians and will not return their bodies,” he added.

Tribute to the innocent

On Wednesday Indian home affairs minister Sushil Kumar Shinde confirmed that Kasab had been executed.

“It was decided … that on 21st November at 7:30 in the morning he would be hanged. That procedure has been completed today,” he said. R R Patil, the home minister for the state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located, called the execution a tribute to “all innocent people and police officers who lost their lives in this heinous attack on our nation.”

It was the first time a capital sentence had been carried out in India since 2004.

Three-day attack

Kasab was one of ten gunmen who entered Mumbai by boat on 26 November 2008, armed with grenades and automatic weapons.

The gunmen spread across Mumbai, the financial capital of India, targeting luxury hotels, a Jewish centre and the city’s main train station (pictured, right). The other gunmen were killed in the three-day attack, which India has blamed on Laskhar e-Taiba, a militant Pakistani organisation.

An Indian judge sentenced Kasab to death in May 2010 for waging war against India, murder and terrorism, among other charges. Following the sentencing, Kasab appealed for mercy Indian President Pranab Mukherjee.

The plea was rejected on 5 November this year, and the date for Kasab’s execution was set.