By Sagnik Chowdhury

As security agencies attempt to piece together the plot and identify the key players behind the 26/11 terror strikes in Mumbai, the investigations hinge largely on the information provided by Ajmal Ameer Kasab, the only terrorist—of the ten who landed on Mumbai’s shores—caught alive.

Kasab, who belongs to Faridkot village in Okara district of Punjab province in Pakistan, is currently in the custody of the Mumbai Police Crime Branch, and the details he divulged on his indoctrination and training point a finger at the Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan.

Educated till class IV in a government school, Kasab left his native village in 2000 to stay with his elder brother who worked on a farm in Lahore. The 21-year-old worked there as a casual labourer for some time and stayed in touch with his parents, Mohammed Ameer (46) and Noor Elahi (34), occasionally visiting his village.

The indoctrination

In 2005, however, Kasab had a fight with his parents and walked out of his home, taking to robbery and dacoity to earn money. Kasab’s recruitment into the terror fold began in mid-2006 when he wanted to buy a firearm and was asked to contact an LeT operative in Rawalpindi. It was through this contact that he was introduced to top leaders in the terror outfit and radicalised through sustained indoctrination by Zaqi-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. Kasab has told interrogators that the ten terrorists were handpicked from a larger group and that they attended training camps at Mansera, Muridke, Muzaffarabad and a location near Karachi. Top LeT operatives, identified as Abu Hamza—said to be involved in the December 2005 attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore—and Kahafa were in charge of their training.

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