Opinion The Kasab trial — the tragedy,the farce

If the case were to be weighed on a scale for the Mumbai Police,the verdict is only half a victory as the prosecution won the easy part of getting Kasab convicted. The acquittals of Ahmed and Ansari were a cruel blow to the force as it showed the failure to build and prove a solid case,that is if there was one in the first place,that the two Indian men had indeed scouted the 26/11 targets and helped Lashkar bosses plan and execute the attack. Doubts had been expressed about the complicity of the two men from the time they were picked up as suspects and then charged for their alleged role. Their acquittal and the accompanying strong comments by the court have ended up underlining the shoddy attempt to prove an Indian hand in the carnage. Of course,Ansari and Ahmed also need to thank the emergence of a wild card in the form of David Headley which tilted the scales overwhelmingly in their favour midway through the trial.

A recap of the trial,however,shows that this sense of clarity and balance was not always evident and often one or the other party was allowed to play to the gallery from behind the fortified walls of Arthur Road Jail. In fact,the drama started even before the trial,with the selection of a woman lawyer to defend Kasab running into controversy and triggering protests because she was also the wife of a man who worked in the same Mumbai police which was so brutally targeted by Kasab. Her successor took his job so seriously that the judge felt that he was not co-operating with the court and was possibly trying to drag the trial and ended up sacking him four months before the trial concluded.

Bizarre stories often emerged from the trial about how Kasab wanted biryani instead of plain rice,wanted to celebrate Raksha Bandhan and tie rakhis,offered to sketch his Lashkar bosses and gave childish doodles,talked and laughed in the face of the court and made a mockery of the judicial process and sparking justifiable indignation in the light of the brutality he was accused of. Often,it seemed like Kasab was an alien exhibit on display,for the court,the prosecution and defence,and even the media reporting the trial. And the court was unusually indulgent of the media,allowing reporters to interrupt proceedings and even seek clarifications,something completely unheard of.

The shocker came when Kasab retracted his confession and guilty plea and went on to narrate how he had come to Mumbai to watch Bollywood movies and was picked up from a city beach and framed in the case because he was Pakistani. Surely his awareness and strategy to deal with the court had undergone a transformation even though he was in solitary confinement and had no contact with the outside world barring his low profile lawyer who seemed to be struggling to mount a strong defence. It was subsequently understood that Kasab was possibly being coached by his two Indian co-accused with whom he sat through the day in the court. Yet,no attempt was made to separate them and stop Kasab from wasting the time and energy of the court.

While the verdict seeks to throw a blanket on those blemishes and hopes to bring closure to yet another tragedy in Mumbai’s contemporary history,it actually needs to serve as a wake-up call for much that is left undone on the security and legal fronts vis-à-vis the other terror strikes witnessed by the state. Two key developments in recent weeks went rather unnoticed in the superfast news cycles that have come to symbolise our times. First,the Maharashtra government — which had recreated a mini Republic Day-style parade to display its new security gadgets on the first anniversary of 26/11 — admitted in the state assembly last month that it had not been able to buy any new bullet-proof jackets for its policemen since the attack even though the quality of these vests were among the most widely debated controversies in the aftermath of 26/11.

Days later,the Supreme Court dismissed a petition that had challenged the use of the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the 2006 serial blasts on local trains which killed 188 people,the 2006 Malegaon blasts and the Aurangabad arms haul case. The real story here was not the court dismissing the petition but that it actually took the state more than two years to achieve this,during which the trial was suspended and the undertrials languished in jail. And this was less due to a hotly contested legal battle and more because the state did not display the urgency to push the legal system to vacate the stay. Some legal experts also feel that the state is on the backfoot in the 2008 Malegaon blast trial after the application of MCOCA was found invalid and planters of the bomb are yet to be found.

Which is why the Kasab trial and verdict is the exception to the norm. What will happen to Kasab’s sentence and how soon he will be hanged if he runs out of all options to get it reversed is,for the moment,caught in a cacophony of politics and law. Bizarre comparisons being made between him and Saddam Hussein and Afzal Guru notwithstanding,the trajectory of his case will surely challenge the wits of the Centre even as it embarks on a fresh attempt to make peace with Pakistan. For Mumbai and Maharashtra,the spectacle of 26/11 is pretty much over. It is time to reboot the system and focus on the overloaded inbox,without forgetting the lessons of the tragedy.

yp.rajesh@expressindia.com