26 November 2021 marks the thirteenth anniversary of the fateful attacks endured by the city of Mumbai when Pakistani terrorists staged simultaneous attacks at multiple places in the city. It was on this day in 2008, that 10 Lashkar-e Toiba terrorists from Pakistan reached Mumbai through the sea route and lay siege to the city for more than 60 hours. They unleashed mayhem in the city, killing innocent people in their wake as they opened fire with complete abandon. About 166 people were killed in the attack, including 18 security personnel, and scores of others were rendered injured and maimed.
While the security forces killed 9 terrorists in the encounter that ensued following the attacks which were later branded as Mumbai 26/11 attacks, they managed to grab hold of one Pakistani terrorist alive, Ajmal Amir Kasab, who was caught alive by the security forces when he sped through the Marine Drive a little after midnight on November 27, 2008. From Kasab, the police were able to uncover the grand conspiracy hatched by terrorists in Pakistan to wreak havoc in the financial capital of India.
Though he initially pleaded not guilty for the attacks, he later confessed to his crimes and admitted to his guilt. To make a watertight against Pakistan’s involvement in the attacks, the police subjected Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only terrorist in the November 26 Mumbai terror strike to be captured alive, to a narco analysis test, to corroborate all that he had confessed in his interrogation and to get more information about the conspiracy.
Though Kasab had already provided the police with a detailed account of the Mumbai terror attack plan, the training he received in Lashkar-e-Taiba’s (LeT) Pakistan-based camps and his family background, Mumbai crime branch sleuths felt the need of a narco test which they thought would help them sift fact from fiction as Kasab was likely to have conjured up some details at certain points or hidden some information. And his confession in the narco analysis provided a telltale insight into how the terror masterminds in Pakistan brainwashed poor men and their families into propagating the poison of Islamic jihad.
Here’s the transcript of the narco test conducted on Ajmal Amir Kasab:-
Question. Chacha(Zaki-ur-Rehman) belongs to which village?
Answer: I don’t know where he stays but he has a particular office. He used to come from there. He never tells anyone.
Q. Who prepared you to go there(Mumbai)?
A: My father told me. He said, “We are very poor, you will also earn money like others. It is not difficult. You will earn money as others do. We will get money and our poverty will go away. Your siblings will also get married. You will stay happy like others.
Q. Who all are in your family?
A: Mother, sister.
Q. What is your mother’s name?
A: Noor Illahee, she is around 40 years old.
Q. What does she do?
A: She is a housewife.
Q. What does your father do?
A: He used to work in Lahore. His name is Amir Shaban Kasab. He is around 45. He used to work as a hawker in Lahore.
Q. How many brothers do you have?
A: We are three brothers. The first one is Afzal Kasab and his wife’s name is Safiya. He is 25 years old. He has two children. One boy and a girl. The boy’s name is Aadil and he is 7 years old. The girl was recently born and I don’t know her name.
Q. Why don’t know your brother’s daughter’s name?
A: It is because there’s some dispute between my brother and his wife. They don’t stay together. She is at her mother’s place.
Q. What is your educational qualification?
A: I have studied till the fourth standard.
Q. When did you leave school?
A: I left school in 2000. I was working as a labourer since then. Then I went to Lahore and did the same work. I lived in Mohalla Tohidabad, Galli no. 54, house no. 12.
Q. How long did you stay there?
A: From 5 years, from 2000 to 2005. I was not being paid well for my work. My father told me we are very poor. Then they introduced me to LeT men.
Q. How did your father(Amir Kasab) and Chacha (Lakhvi) get to know each other?
A: They knew each other from my village.
Q. Did he (Lakhvi) visit your village?
A: Yes, he has an office in my village as well as in Dipalpur. This is how they invite people, just like they did with my father. He told me it’s a very difficult job. It is very respectable? He said, son, you go, your poverty will go away. You will earn respect.
Q. How did they invite people?
A: They keep telling people, it is a Jihad. It is an honourable and daring job. You earn respect, it is a work of God. You will earn a lot of money, your poverty will be eliminated.
Q. How many days did you train?
A: About three months.
Q. Where did your training take place?
A: There is a city called Mansehra. There is a place near it, village Batal.
Q. How many people were trained?
A: About 24-25 people were there in our class during the training.
After you finished today’s work (26/11), where were you to go?
A: We were sure to die.
Q. How?
A: He (Lakhvi) used to say, you will go to heaven. So I said to myself, run, this does not feel right.
Q. How many people did you shoot?
A: I don’t know.
Q. How many bullets did you fire?
A: Don’t know. Maybe two, two-and-a-half magazines.
Q. How many people did you kill?
A: I have no idea. We just kept on firing.
Q. Who were you told to kill?
A: The people.
Q. How long did you plan to go on?
A: He (Lakhvi) used to say, till you are alive, keep on killing, keep on killing.
Q. How many people came?
A: There were more. But we had been blindfolded, we two. And then we were made to get off it (the boat).
Q. Who was supporting you in India?
A: I don’t know. They did not tell us.
Q. So you people came here for Jihad?
A: (Weeping) What Jihad sir!
Q. Those who lost their lives were poor, just like you. People like you died.
A: (Weeping) Yes. God will never forgive me.
Q. Where else have you attacked before this?
A: Nowhere, it’s my first operation.
Q. What have they done for you?
A: They promised to give my family a big amount. They will perhaps give lakhs of rupees to my family.
Q. Who will give the money?
A: Chacha will give money. He has a long beard. He is around 40-45 years old. He is a jihadi. He had first gone to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet forces.
Q. What did he tell you?
A: He used to be a very busy person but whenever he came, he gave us lectures. He used to tell us, you are Muslims, this is not humanity. They kill your people. That they have left you in poverty.
Q What is Jihad? What did they tell you about Jihad?
A: I don’t know. they did not tell us. They only told us that it is the way to heaven.
Q. Money might be one of the reasons, what other incentive did you have to kill innocent people?
A: Nothing sir, poverty is the biggest reason. If a person has nothing to eat, nothing to wear, he can do anything.
Q. So how many days did your training last?
A: First, raw recruits are trained for a month. Then, there is more training for mature boys. They are then trained for another three months.
Q. And?
A: He is made ready and is told: now go, kill. That’s it.
Q. Your training took place a year ago. What did you do for a year?
A: In the end, he sent me to Karachi. I came to Karachi in that launch, which is used to catch fish. I thought I have now got a job. I didn’t know any such thing. Money was being sent home. There was no tension. Father used to say, my son will do a great job? so he needs this.
Q. What about the guilt factor of killing innocent people?
A: They said something has to be done if you want money and fame.
Q. How did you reach Mumbai?
A: We boarded the trawler near Azizabad. We were brought to the boarding point in a car from Boharo.
Q. When was the attack planned?
A: It was planned a month before November 26, 2008.
Q. Tell us about the meeting.
A: Ismail and I were summoned. We were told that the time has come for the honourable job. We were shown CDs of our targets in Mumbai.
Q. What was there in the CDs?
A: They showed us the route we had to take. We were shown pictures of the VT station(CST station) via Azad Maidan. We were told that the Taj hotel would be on the way.
Q. What was the role of Ismail? If there were any problems on the way, he was supposed to take care of it since he was the older of us two.
A: Tell us the name of all terrorists who attacked Mumbai? Faradullah, Kasha, Umar, Ismail, Abdur Rehman Senior, Sohaib, Abdur Rehman junior, Omair, Ali and me.
Q. When were you supposed to launch the attack? What was the reason behind choosing the date?
A: We were given this specific date and time of the attack. They had asked us to attack between 10 to 11 if we had reached in the morning. And if we reached in the night, then the attack had to be made by 11 pm.
Q. What after 11?
A: Nothing, we were supposed to die.
Q. When did you start in Mumbai?
A: I don’t remember but it must be 23 or 24 November. All of us were kept at a secret location in Azizabad for over a month. This was done to keep the mission a secret.
Q. What was the name of the trawler you boarded from Pakistan?
A: It was Al-Hussaini launch and it was owned by Chacha(Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi).
Q. Where does he(Chacha) live?
A: Mansehra. We only knew his office. He was the chief at the training centre.
Q. How far did Chacha accompany you?
A: He came with us till we boarded the second boat. It was somewhere in Pakistan in the middle of the sea.
Q. Was the captain of the Indian trawler a Pakistani?
A: No, he was an Indian. He did not talk to anyone. He had a pretty serious demeanour and chose not to speak with any of us.
Q. Who were you ordered to kill?
A: No one specific. Just common people. When we reached there, we realised it is too difficult to do the job, so we decided to flee.
Q. How did you get your hands on a police vehicle?
A: The vehicle was standing nearby. The police officers inside the vehicle shot at us. I fell down but Ismail killed them and dragged me inside the vehicle.
Q. What were you told to demand?
A: Demands were to be made by Chacha.
Q. How many hand grenades were you carrying?
A: We were carrying 8 hand grenades. Ismail too had 8 grenades. Everyone was given 8 grenades. Only one team was given more ammunition. The team of Abdur Rehman and Ali had more bullets.
