Two weeks ago, hours after he pleaded guilty to his crimes, Ajmal Kasab had offered to draw sketches of two senior Lashkar operatives who are wanted for their role in the 26/11 attacks, but whose photographs are not with Indian police or intelligence agencies.

What Kasab has given the police are, however, a child’s doodles which have no resemblance to human faces, and are, for the purposes of the investigation, “completely useless”, sources in Arthur Road jail said.

The prank has upset officials, who do not plan to hand the doodles to Judge M L Tahaliyani, who had directed that Kasab be given paper and a pencil to make the ‘sketches’. Jail staff had watched Kasab extra closely to ensure he did not hurt himself with the pencil.

“Although he is not a sketch artist, we were expecting him to make a serious effort to draw the two faces,” said a prison official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “However, when he gave us the sketches we did not know what to say. He had drawn doodles like a small child. The drawings do not resemble actual faces by any stretch of imagination, and are completely useless.”

The lone surviving terrorist has showed erratic behaviour and mood swings in court, laughing during proceedings, and made several impractical demands, including one for a CD containing CCTV footage of him at CST on 26/11. He also asked the judge’s permission to write a letter to Mecca, but refused to divulge the name or address of his intended recepient.

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