Caution, anger, sympathy in Pakistan

Talking to Reuters from his home village of Faridkot, Kasab's aunt Shahnaz Sughra said she was proud of him and wanted his body back. A school mate remembered a boisterous child who loved karate "but never harmed anyone". Villagers threw stones and slapped around journalists who went to the village.

"This news is hell for us," Sughra told Reuters by phone. "...Even if he did something wrong, we just want his body. Even if he did something wrong, I am proud that he taught the enemy a lesson in their own country."

A PTI report from Lahore said Pakistani security and intelligence agencies barred journalists and television cameramen from entering Kasab's hometown in Punjab province, hours after his execution.

The security personnel, who were in plain clothes and pretended to be villagers, stopped reporters from entering Faridkot village, located 150 km from the Punjab capital of Lahore, several journalists said.

The personnel tried to snatch cameras from crews of some TV news channels and manhandled them when they argued they had come to Faridkot to film and interview Kasab's neighbours.

"The men from the security agencies in the guise of villagers were deployed on the road leading to Kasab's neighbourhood. They asked us to go back and not to try to defame Pakistan," a correspondent of a leading English daily, who did not want to be named, told PTI.

He said the men tried to snatch cameras from the crews of Express News, Channel 5 and Apna TV and manhandled some media representatives when they insisted on entering the neighbourhood.

"Why are you bent on defaming our country? Don't play into the hands of an enemy country," the correspondent quoted one of the men as having said. "Go back home and forget interviewing people of this village," he further quoted the man as having said.

... contd.

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