’Terrorist Kasab should be hanged’: Pak Interior Minister Malik

Agencies

Maldives, 10 November 2011: Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik, on Thursday, said that Ajmal Amir Kasab, who has been sentenced to death for the 2008 Mumbai attack, should be hanged. 

 

Speaking to Indian journalists on the sidelines of the SAARC summit here, Malik said, “Kasab is a terrorist. He is a non-state actor. He should go to gallows.” 

 

Importantly, immediately after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, Malik had denied that Kasab even existed only to later, in January 2009, he acknowledged that he is a Pakistani but with a rider that he was a ‘non-state’ actor. 

 

With regards to how Pakistan intends to move forward on ensuring that Kasab pays for his crime, Malik said that Islamabad was awaiting a visit of the Judicial Commission to India to get some evidence. 

“Once that Commission will go to India, its findings are important for the judicial process in Pakistan. When the findings are there, they will be covering all the legal sides. Then there will be some judicially-satisfactory statement,” he pointed out. 

 

Asked about Pakistan removing Jamat-ud-Dawa from the terror list, Malik said, "Information is not evidence and there is need for concrete legal evidence for keeping them in the terror list". 

 

On the release of JuD founder Hafiz Saeed, he said, "He was bailed out by the highest court of Pakistan and the government can’t do anything about it". 

 

He reiterated Pakistan’s stand that it was not aware of Osama bin Laden’s presence in the country. He said bin Laden was trained by intelligence agencies like CIA and ISI and he knew how to hide.