Outside the Mumbai Central prison on the busy Sane Guruji Marg, the show of strength is absolute. On half of the road’s width that’s blocked to traffic, Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel periodically march around the perimeter of the jail, some with automatic rifles, one with an incongruous grenade-launcher hoisted on his shoulder. Barely 10 metres from Mumbai’s crazed traffic and adjacent to a pavement on which are housed vada pav vendors, a corner restaurant doing brisk business, a newspaper vendor and sundry other little shops, the ITBP men are used to getting gawked at, but nobody asks any questions. Everybody already knows that the prison is the current address of the man labelled as somebody who has united the financial capital in hate and anger, Ajmal Amir Kasab, 21.

Inside, in a special court conducting what is arguably the country’s most significant trial right now, Kasab is having a new antic.

At 12.10 p.m. on Friday, as government document examiner Jayant Kashiram Ahir, sweating in a grey suit, explains how he concluded that it was co-accused Fahim Ansari’s handwriting on a series of hand-drawn maps he was requested to study, Kasab cups a palm conspiratorially over his mouth and whispers to one of the four policemen standing guard at the dock. Fahim and the third accused, Sabahuddin Ahmed, grin; Kasab has his right little finger out, inches away from his knee. Over an hour to go for lunch, Ajmal Amir Kasab wants to use the toilet. The court staff pays no attention, Special Judge M.L. Tahaliyani is engrossed in the testimony of the witness, but Kasab has the attention of the journalists. He looks around, mock blushes and goes back to picking at his clothes, today a freshly washed, full-sleeved white kurta-pyjama.

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