India eyes Israel's Iron Dome to counter Pak, puppets

NEW DELHI: As Fajr V rockets rained down on Israel from battleground Gaza for a week, many Indian defense planners were keeping a close watch on the performance of Israel's Iron Dome, which is probably the only deterrent to these homegrown short-range missiles.

It was not just out of curiosity regarding one of the most effective systems against rockets, but also because of the possibility of India acquiring an indigenous version of Iron Dome.

Several months ago, the military scientists in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) had suggested that India look at a joint development programme with Israeli firms to develop an Indian version of Iron Dome, which is touted as the most effective system against short-range missiles such as Fajr V rockets. The Indian scientists believe Israel's plight has several parallels to its threat from Pakistan as well as the vulnerability of its cities from terrorists.

The Iron Dome, according to reports, intercepted 87% of the rockets fired at Israel by the Hamas. The system, produced by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and at work since 2011, is believed to have the capability to shoot down rockets and artillery shells with ranges of up to 70 km. The system has been shown to be effective against rockets or shells that might target populated areas.

In the Indian military establishment, the temptation for acquiring this new toy is explained by the fact that India is ringed by hostile neighbours. Pakistani terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) could well acquire similar capability that would threaten large groups of Indian population. Even otherwise, the strategic planners have for long been worried about the deadly effect of short-range rockets fired at Indian cities or from across the border.

Unlike ballistic missiles, against which DRDO claims to have a fairly good anti-ballistic missile shield, there is almost no protection against short-range rockets or artillery fire. DRDO is currently collaborating with Israeli firms to develop medium range surface to air missiles (MRSAMs) and LRSAMs. However, Iron Dome is in a different class all together, Israeli diplomatic sources here argue.

One of the reasons why some Indian defence planners is pushing for it is the possibility of another conflict with Pakistan, where a system like the Iron Dome might be useful to deter even conventional artillery attacks. In addition, Pakistan has developed a tactical nuclear weapon like the Nasr, which is a solid fuelled battlefield range ballistic missile. While Pakistani analysts say this was developed in anticipation of India's supposed Cold Start doctrine, some Indian sources say the Iron Dome might be an effective deterrent against this new weapon.

On the other hand, acquiring such defensive systems in anticipation of similar attacks might prove to be too much a temptation for groups like LeT. While they haven't yet developed rockets like the ones the Hamas has been using, the lure of such home-grown weaponry should not be under-estimated, say diplomatic sources.

According to sources, there have been some discussions between DRDO and their Israeli counterparts for a possible joint development of Iron Dome for India. "The Israeli team comes and works in our laboratories. Our team goes and works in their laboratories and industries. There is a learning that is taking place which was not there when we buy things and integrate with existing products... In directed energy weapons — we are focusing on fibre laser, high powered micro-waves, etc. We have also started discussions with Iron Dome for co-development (in India)," Dr W Selvamurthy, Chief Controller looking after international cooperation, told the Economic Times recently.

How it works:

* The system detects launches of rockets and quickly determines their flight path. If it is headed toward populated areas or sensitive targets, it fires an interceptor with a special warhead that strikes the incoming rocket within seconds. Rockets headed toward open areas area allowed to land.

* Currently, five Iron Dome batteries are deployed in Israel. Most are located in the south near Gaza. A fifth battery was deployed outside Tel Aviv on Saturday, two months ahead of schedule. Hours later, it shot down a rocket headed toward Tel Aviv.

*Missiles cost around $40,000 a piece. In 2010, the US provided $200 million to expand development. Additional funding is currently being considered, with $70 million already allocated for this fiscal year.

*The system is part of what Israel calls its "multilayer missile defense". It is meant to protect against the tens of thousands of short-range rockets possessed by militants in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Israel has also deployed its " Arrow" missile defense systems for long-range threats from Iran. The military says its new "David's Sling" system, being developed by Rafael to stop medium-range missiles, will be activated by 2014.

(Source: AP)

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Ind vs Eng: Cheteshwar Pujara props up India with second consecutive ton

MUMBAI: Cheteshwar Pujara cracked his second consecutive Test century as India recovered from a precarious situation to restore the balance in the second cricket Test against England on Friday.

Scorecard | Match In Pics

Pujara, who had scored a double century in the first match, notched up his third Test century to remain unbeaten on 114 on a turning track at the Wankhede Stadium and steered the hosts to a far more comfortable 266 for six at close on an eventful opening day.

Pujara found an able ally in Ravichandran Ashwin (60 batting) as the duo put on unfinished 97-run partnership for the seventh wicket to bail them out after the hosts were reeling at 119 for five at one stage.

Barring Pujara and Ashwin, none of the batsman in the star-studded line-up could make an impression on a track that started turning from the second session onwards and which was exploited by left-arm spinner Monty Panesar who claimed four wickets.

Coming to the crease after the second ball dismissal of Gautam Gambhir, the 25-year-old Pujara kept one end going by showing superb judgement against the spinning ball to pull India out of a deep hole after the home team opted to bat first on winning the toss.

Pujara stayed for just over six hours in which he had faced 279 balls and struck ten fours. Ashwin faced 84 for his valuable knock.

Pujara came into the game on the back of his unbeaten knocks of 206 and 41 in the two innings of the opening Test at Ahmedabad, which fetched him the Man of the Match award and paved the way for his team's comprehensive nine-wicket victory.

Panesar, who took four for 91 by the end of the day's day, was played with a lot of assurance by Pujara.

It was the Rajkot-born youngster's third 100-plus knock in his last four Test matches, having scored a maiden century (159) against New Zealand in August.

Pujara, who has been dismissed only in the warm-up game for Mumbai A after making 87, continued to prosper against the visitors with his exemplary concentration and shot selection.

He gave one chance, when on 60, when he edged Panesar but James Anderson could not latch on to it.

When on 94, England needlessly appealed against him for a catch at midwicket, which was referred to the third umpire and the replays showed the ball had bounced in front of the short leg fielder.

The early part of the day belonged to England who sent back Gambhir (4), Virender Sehwag (30) -- in his 100th Test -- Sachin Tendulkar (8), Virat Kohli (19) and Yuvraj Singh (0).

Barring Gambhir and Yuvraj, who fell to Anderson and Graeme Swann, the others were dismissed by Panesar.

Pujara and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who mixed caution with aggression before becoming Panesar's fourth victim for 29, put on a partnership of 50 runs in 128 balls.

England's hopes of slicing through the Indian tail, though, came to naught with Ashwin scoring his second fifty.

With some more batting to come in the form of Harbhajan Singh -- drafted into the eleven as the third spinner after more than a year's gap -- Zaheer Khan and Pragyan Ojha, India would fancy their chances of taking the score past 300.

In the morning and soon after lunch, England applied the screws on India and made the hosts struggle on a turning track on which the ball gripped the surface and also bounced.

Panesar, who was left out of the first Test, was the destroyer-in-chief, with a splendid spell of 23 overs on either side of lunch for the wickets of Sehwag, Tendulkar and Kohli before coming on for another spell for the wicket of Dhoni.

Anderson and off-spinner Swann packed off Gambhir (4) and Yuvraj (2) in two balls apiece.

Gambhir, who flicked Anderson to midwicket off the first ball, missed the next to be rapped in front.

After pushing India on the back foot in the pre-lunch session, England continued the good work with a two-wicket burst in successive overs in the first hour of the post-lunch session.

Panesar, who sent back Sehwag and Tendulkar in successive overs before lunch, got his third victim by dismissing Kohli.

After disturbing the stumps of Sehwag and Tendulkar with sharply turning balls, Panesar induced Kohli to attempt a drive with a ball that drifted in and turned big on pitching to take the leading edge for Nick Compton to bring off a good diving catch.

Kohli had cover-driven the left-arm bowler and his spin partner Swann for attractive boundaries in successive overs before he was lured by the crafty Sikh.

The slow bowler made the ball drift in to the right-handers and extracted sharp turn off the track.

He could have had the confident-looking Pujara too when the batsman, batting on 60 in a team score of 135 for five, edged the bowler to the left of Anderson who could not latch on to the catch at short gully.

Had it been taken India would have been in deeper trouble.

Prior to this slice of luck Yuvraj, who made 74 on his Test comeback in Ahmedabad, had departed for a second-ball duck, clean bowled by Swann. Swann had been brought on for a new spell by skipper Alastair Cook soon after the left-hander arrived at the crease, and the move paid off.

The hosts lost these two wickets in successive overs for the addition of just one run to be tottering at 119 for five and the loss of Pujara, easily the best Indian batsman against the turning ball in this match, would have been a major blow to their hopes of putting up a fighting total.

Dhoni came to the crease and started to attack the two spinners with his drives and cuts.

He was lucky on 22 in a score of 149 for five when he stepped out against Swann, missed a big heave but luckily the ball clipped the top of his pad and got deflected before wicketkeeper Matt Prior could stump the batsman.

Dhoni was later out, caught off the gloves in the close-in cordon, off Panesar. Pujara and Ashwin, however, held fort.

Even the second new ball, taken after 80 overs, did not benefit England.

Pujara pulled Anderson for a four to complete his 100 in 248 balls, before Ashwin struck the bowler for three fours in an over to race to 50 in 67 balls.

The off-spinner has hit a century at this ground an year ago, against the West Indies.

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Girl shot dead for telling man not to urinate in public

NEW DELHI: An argument over lack of civic sense again ended in murder in the capital late on Wednesday night. A 17-year-old girl was shot dead and her mother shot at in Nizamuddin in south Delhi by their apparently-inebriated, former tenant for asking him to stop urinating near the staircase of their house.

The murder took place about 10 pm at E-405, Alvi Chowk, which is 500 metres away from Nizamuddin PS. Police have identified the accused as Javed (26). A case of murder has been registered and a manhunt launched.

Binno alias Gudiya and her mother Sadmani (40) were laying the table for dinner when they spotted Javed loitering outside their house.

"They served the food and switched on the TV when Javed arrived with a companion. The companion waited at a distance while Javed stood at the stairs leading to the house and began relieving himself. Sadmani and Binno emerged and loudly asked him to leave," a neighbour said. The argument that followed soon turned ugly and Javed left for a few minutes after threatening dire consequences. "When he returned, he called them out, whipped out a 7.65 mm pistol and opened fire. Binno was shot twice while her mother took a bullet," said a police officer.

Hearing their screams, neighbours gathered. They rushed the pair to AIIMS Trauma Center. Binno was declared dead on arrival while Sadmani is in the intensive care unit, police said. "Javed has a few criminal cases registered against him including a charge of attempt to murder. His mother works as a domestic help. Sadmani, relatives said, sometimes financially helped out Javed's family when he was in jail," the officer said.

Gudiya's 14-year-old brother and father Aslam were not present when the shooting took place. Aslam was away on night duty at Vatika, a banquet hall in Pragati Maidan where he is caretaker. Police received a call from the hospital two hours later. The body was handed over to the family on Thursday afternoon following postmortem.

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Ajmal Kasab hanged: A puppet's life ends on a string

MUMBAI: Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab exited this world as stealthily as he had entered Mumbai four years ago. The lone surviving gunman of 26/11 was hanged to death in Pune's Yerawada jail at 7.30am on Wednesday in an extremely hush-hush operation.

Asked for his last wish, the 25-year-old terrorist from Faridkot village in Pakistan's Punjab province said: "Gharwalon ko milna hai (I want to meet my family members)." He was told the Islamabad government had been informed about his hanging but had failed to respond. As his hands and legs were tied, his last words, according to officials who witnessed the hanging, were: "Allah kasam maaf karna. Aisi galati dobara nahi hogi...(Allah, please forgive me, this mistake won't happen again)."

Sources said Kasab was babbling incoherently before the hangman pulled the lever at Yerawada, about 150km from Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail, his home for four years. His body was buried in a pit in the prison premises as there were no claimants. He was convicted in May 2010 by a special judge for murdering seven people directly with his AK-47 and 65 others in common intent with fellow terrorist Ismail. He was also found guilty of being part of a Lashkar-e-Taiba conspiracy that led to 166 deaths. The Mumbai high court in February 2011 and the Supreme Court in August this year upheld the sentence.

How Kasab came to be hanged as most of India slept is as dramatic a tale as the unfortunate cycle of terror he and his nine other terrorists unleashed across Mumbai landmarks on November 26, 2008.

On November 7, two days after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected Kasab's clemency petition, Shinde, home secretary R K Singh and sleuths from the Intelligence Bureau drafted 'Operation X' to execute him. "It was a top-secret operation. Only a few bureaucrats and high-ranking IPS officers were involved," Shinde told TOI.

The next day, Shinde sent the file to the Maharashtra government and advised the state home department to hang Kasab on November 21. Incidentally, R R Patil, the state home minister, went on record on Wednesday to say that Kasab's 'death warrant' had been drawn up in consultation with the additional sessions judge two months earlier, on September 11, after the Supreme Court upheld his death penalty.

Next came the task of preparing Kasab for the gallows. Mumbai police commissioner Satya Pal Singh, joint commissioners Himanshu Roy, Sadanand Date and inspector general of prisons Vinod Lokhande were handpicked to execute the plan. "All along, we were told that the world should learn about Kasab's hanging only after the execution," a top IPS officer said.

The state at one point toyed with the idea of air-lifting Kasab to the Pune prison. But a senior cabinet minister said that the plan was nixed in view of the permissions required for carrying arms on a plane. Finally, it was decided to shift Kasab in a car.

DGP Sanjeev Dayal called a handful of officers and told them that they had less than 10 days to transfer Kasab from the Arthur Road jail for undertrials to the Yerawada prison for convicts.

The operation should be airtight, he stressed. "Such secrecy was needed because we were anticipating international pressure to reconsider the death penalty," said a top government official. (TOI was the only paper to report, in its November 21 edition, that Kasab may have been secretly moved to Yerawada).

The team handpicked the officials, comprising mostly commandos from the anti-terrorist Force One, to escort Kasab out of the city. "Only a few of them were briefed about the prisoner's identity. Most of the commandos and members of the para-military units were clueless till Wednesday morning that they had accompanied Kasab," another source said.

The team then got cracking on the six-stage plan involving a posse of vehicles and a troop of commandos. The first began with Kasab leaving Arthur Road jail at 1.38am on Tuesday and the last ended at 4.34am the same morning, when he entered Yerawada.

Each stage had a different code name and the bosses were briefed about the success at the end of every leg. "We basically ensured that there were no traffic blocks on the road and no attack on him," an official added.

Investigating officer Ramesh Mahale accompanied Kasab as he was the only face familiar to the terrorist. In Pune, too, arrangements were made with the local police to ensure that the convoy reached the jail without any hitch.

"It was early morning so everything went smoothly," a source said. Senior officers monitoring the operation went to sleep only after they received information that Kasab had reached Yerawada jail safely.

While the drama was unfolding, a huge posse of policemen continued guarding Arthur Road's prized prisoner without realizing that he had left hours ago.

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Pakistan Taliban vow to attack Indian targets over Kasab

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Taliban movement threatened on Thursday to attack Indian targets to avenge the country's execution of Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the lone survivor of the militant squad responsible for a rampage through Mumbai that killed 166 people in 2008.

Kasab was hanged on Wednesday amid great secrecy, underscoring the political sensitivity of the November 26, 2008, massacre, which still casts a pall over relations between nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India.

"We have decided to target Indians to avenge the killing of Ajmal Kasab," said Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Ehsan demanded that India return Kasab's body.

"If they don't return his body to us or his family we will capture Indians and will not return their bodies," he said, adding that the Taliban will try to strike Indian targets "anywhere".

The Taliban, who are close to al-Qaida, are seen as one of the biggest security threats in Pakistan and are blamed for many of the suicide bombings across the country. They have not carried out major attacks abroad.

Kasab was charged with 86 offences, including murder and waging war against the Indian state, in a charge-sheet running to more than 11,000 pages.

It was the first time a capital sentence had been carried out in India since 2004. There was celebration on the streets of Mumbai and other cities as news of the execution spread, but militant groups in Pakistan reacted angrily, as did residents of his home village of Faridkot.

People set off fireworks and handed out sweets in Indian cities. Some held up photos of Kasab with a rope noose superimposed over his head.

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Ajmal Kasab sang in cell the night before

PUNE: It was only when he was being taken to the gallows that Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab lost his composure. The 26/11 terrorist, who was hanged to death at the Yerawada central prison at 7.30 am on Wednesday, remained "cool" and even "sang songs in his cell" on Tuesday night, barely hours after he was told that he would be executed the next morning, sources said.

However, Kasab hardly slept on Tuesday night. In the morning, he expressed an unusual desire for tomatoes and the jail authorities gave him a basketful. However, his last wish to meet his family could not be fulfilled. He was buried in the Yerawada jail premises itself.

Kasab was brought from Mumbai's Arthur Road jail to the Yerawada jail at 4.30 am on Tuesday in a secret operation. A convoy of six vehicles accompanied by special commandos took the Mumbai-Pune expressway to reach the jail.

Before Kasab could reach Pune, hectic preparations were afoot at the Yerawada jail for his execution with the jail staff preparing the rope to be used for the hanging and even doing a dummy trial. "Special trials were undertaken particularly to check if the wooden board on the gallows could sustain Kasab's weight," a source said. Jail authorities even shifted out all the convicts lodged in the high security 'anda' cell (an egg-shaped cell which is divided in two parts) to lodge Kasab till late Tuesday evening, when he had to be shifted to the special cell where convicts to be taken to the gallows are kept.

Kasab was medically examined on his arrival at the Yerawada jail around 5 am. "We evaluated his consciousness, orientation and physical fitness. He weighed 52.5 kg and his blood pressure was normal at 120/80. He was evaluated for his mental fitness too by a jail psychiatrist," the source said, adding that Kasab appeared quite normal and confidently answered all questions posed by the doctors. "There was no trace of nervousness in him," the source said.

Kasab was told by the jail authorities on Tuesday evening that he would be executed on Wednesday. "He barely slept that night. He was asked to get ready at 4 am. He said he wanted to eat tomatoes, so he was given a basketful. However, he took only two tomatoes and ate only one around 6 am," the source said. After that, he offered namaz, read the Quran and was given prayer beads by the jail officials.

As per procedure, Kasab took another medical examination in his cell on Wednesday morning and was declared "medically fit to be hanged". Asked about his last wish, he said: "Gharwalon ko milna hai (I want to meet my family)". He was told that the Pakistan government had been informed about his hanging but had failed to respond. Asked if he had any other wish, he replied in the negative, the source said.

Kasab was brought to the gallows at 7.20 am. Dressed in the regular jail uniform for convicts, his hands and legs were tied, his head covered with a black cloth and the noose placed around his neck. It was then that he started speaking incoherently apart from seeking divine forgiveness. Sources said that he was hanged at 7.30 am in the presence of a special magistrate, a district administration official, a doctor, a medical team and jail officials.

Minutes after the hanging, a doctor declared Kasab dead and issued a death certificate, the sources said. The jail superintendent then signed a certificate stating that the convict had been hanged and a message was sent to the home ministry about the execution.

Kasab was buried in an open space near the 'faasi' (gallows) gate on jail premises at 9.30 am. Six pits were kept ready to ensure the exact burial spot remains a secret, sources said. "The special cell is located near the 'faasi' yard inside the jail premises, about 300 to 400 metres ahead to the left of the famous Gandhi yard. The Gandhi yard is located to the left after one enters the main entrance of the jail," the sources said.

The entire preparation, including making the rope and actual execution, was done by the jail staff, some of whom were trained by the last hangman, Arjun Jadhav, before he retired in 1996.

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Ajmal Kasab hanged and buried in Pune's Yerwada Jail

PUNE: After nearly four years, Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving Pakistani gunman involved in the Mumbai attacks, was hanged to death at the Yerawada central prison here this morning in a top-secret operation.

Kasab was buried inside the premises of Pune's Yerawada Central Jail shortly after he was hanged, Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said.

"Ajmal Kasab was hanged at 7.30am," Maharashtra home minister R R Patil said in Mumbai shortly after the hanging. Pakistan government was kept informed about the execution.

The execution in the Mumbai attack trial brought closure to many in the audacious strike by 10 terrorists of Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in which 166 people were killed. Nine LeT men were killed during the 60-hour siege which began on the night of November 26, 2008.

The prison authorities remained tight-lipped about the details of hanging performed in a well-guarded secret operation amid reports that Kasab did not have any death wish.

Kasab was executed after he exhausted all legal remedies available to escape the noose with President Pranab Mukherjee rejecting his mercy plea following the advice of the Union home ministry.

Inspector general of Prisons (Maharashtra) Meeran Borwankar refused to respond media queries on the execution of Kasab.

There was, however, no official word or briefing by the jail authorities on the last rites of the hanged convict.

Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said Pakistan was informed about the execution of Kasab.

"With the execution of Kasab, we have completed the judicial procedure of 26/11 case." Shinde said in Delhi.

The Indian High Commission in Islamabad informed Pakistan government about Kasab's hanging through letter, he said, adding Pakistan refused to take the letter, which was then sent through fax.

External affairs minister Salman Khurshid said the obligation of keeping Pakistan informed about the hanging was fulfilled.

Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, who appeared for police in the case said the hanging is a "victory" for the country.

"Due process of law has been followed," Patil said, adding that hanging was carried out after President Mukherjee rejected Kasab's mercy petition on November 8. He said Kasab did not have any death wish.

"This is a true homage to the innocent victims, including policemen and security personnel, who laid down their lives," he said.

"Attack on Mumbai was an attack on the entire country," Patil said.

"I do not think there will be any trouble (if Kasab is buried in India) because India has suffered too much and everyone.... and this country has seen the tragedy. 166 people were killed after there days fight against humanity," he said.

Khurshid said India did not get any request from Pakistan for handing over the body of Kasab.

Nikam said by hanging Kasab the country has paid homage to all those policemen and innocent persons who lost their lives.

"By Kasab's conviction and death penalty, we have proved how the entire conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan. We have set an example that India will not tolerate such attacks and the accused will be brought to justice," Nikam told reporters in Mumbai.

Nikam appeared for the prosecution in the sessions court and High Court and assisted senior counsel Gopal Subramanium in the apex court.

A group of Shiv Sena workers raised slogans 'Vande Mataram' slogans outside the Yerawada jail hailing the hanging of Kasab and demanded that simialr justice be meted out to Parliament attack case death row convict Afzal Guru.

Kasab had been lodged in the Arthur Jail Road in Mumbai ever since he was arrested immediately after the attack in 2008. He was convicted and given capital punishment by the trial court on May 6, 2010 which was upheld by the Bombay High Court on February 21, 2011.

The Supreme Court subsequently upheld the sentence on August 29 this year.

Kasab and the other gunmen entered Mumbai by boat on November 26, 2008. Carrying mobile phones, hand grenades and automatic weapons, they fanned out across Mumbai targeting luxury hotels Taj Mahal and Oberoi Trident, a Jewish centre Chabad House and the city's main train station Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus(CST). (With inputs from PTI)

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Ajmal Kasab nervous but quiet before execution, offered prayers: Jail officer

PUNE: Minutes before his execution in Pune's Yerwada prison on Wednesday, Pakistani gunman Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab appeared to be nervous but was quiet and offered prayers, a jail official said.

"From his body language, we could make out that he was very nervous. However, he remained quiet before he was taken out from his cell for the hanging," the official said.

Kasab had also offered prayers and asked if his family was informed in advance about the hanging to which jail authorities replied in the affirmative, the official said.

Nearly four years after the Mumbai terror attack, Kasab, the sole surviving Pakistani gunman, was hanged this morning at Yerwada central prison here in a secret operation.

Kasab had been made to sign his death warrant before being moved to the Pune jail on November 19.

According to official sources, a senior jail official read out the death warrant to Kasab at his cell and also informed him that his clemency petition had been rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee.

After reading out his death warrant, Kasab, who was part of the 10-member Lashkar group that carried out the dastardly attack on November 26, 2008, was asked to sign it which he did, the sources said.

Later, he was taken by the Yerwada Jail police and the local police was kept out of the loop to maintain secrecy of the operation.

Barring a couple of officers, the 200-strong contingent of ITBP, which has been guarding him since March 2009, had been kept out of loop about his transfer to the Pune jail.

The sources said the ITBP jawans continued to guard the empty high-security cell, which had been housing 25-year-old Kasab.

Ten terrorists belonging to Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had come to Mumbai and carried out the dastardly strikes in which 166 people were killed. Nine of them were killed during the 60-hour siege which began on the night of November 26, 2008. Kasab was, however,caught alive.

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Ajmal Kasab's execution: Taliban shocked, Lashkar says he will 'inspire' more attacks

ISLAMABAD: Mohammad Ajmal Kasab who was executed in Pune's Yerwada jail on Wednesday for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai massacre four years back, was a "hero" who will inspire more attacks, said a senior commander of the Pakistani militant group accused of masterminding the attack.

"He was a hero and will inspire other fighters to follow his path," the commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Kasab was the lone survivor of the terrorist squad that killed 166 people in a rampage through Mumbai in 2008.

Taliban 'shocked'

Pakistan's Taliban movement expressed shock on Wednesday over India's execution of Kasab.

"There is no doubt that it's very shocking news and a big loss that a Muslim has been hanged on Indian soil," Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan told Reuters.

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Ponty Chadha, brother shot by a third group?

NEW DELHI: Were liquor baron Ponty Chadha and his brother Hardeep shot by a third party? Preliminary postmortem findings, while putting a question mark on the police theory that the two were killed in a shootout following a heated argument, have also pointed to this possibility.

The forensic examination conducted by AIIMS doctors has revealed that the number of bullet wounds suffered by Hardeep was found to be roughly the same as that of Ponty — both being more than a dozen. But while four bullets were lodged in Ponty's body, there were none in Hardeep's.

"This is possible only under two circumstances. One, if Ponty was shot from a distance and Hardeep from close range. And two, if the firearm used to kill Ponty was a low-penetrating, locally-made weapon," said a source at AIIMS.

Senior cops said no such local weapon had been found thus far. "Apart from an AK-47, we have recovered only two weapons. Both are licenced pistols," said Vivek Gogia, joint CP (southwestern range).

Sources said if Ponty was indeed shot from a distance and Hardeep from close range, it is highly unlikely that the two groups had fired at each other. "A more plausible explanation is that they were shot by another group. But these are just preliminary findings," the source said.

Ponty was stockier than Hardeep but AIIMS sources said body fat was not a major indicator as to whether or not a bullet would pierce through.

The four bullets recovered from Ponty Chada's body - of which three were stuck to the muscles on the back - have been sent to Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL) for ballistic examination to decide which weapon was used to fire the bullet.

"If it is found that the bullets were fired from a weapon that did not belong to Hardeep, then the theory of third-party involvement will gain ground," said a source in AIIMS.

Hospital authorities and the police remained tightlipped on the findings, refusing to even ascertain if both Ponty and Hardeep were shot from the front. Many legal experts have questioned AIIMS's decision to release Ponty's body initially without recovering the bullets lodged inside.

Sources said that postmortem examination of Ponty started at 1pm during which x-ray was also conducted, which clearly showed the bullets lodged inside.

"They took four hours to complete the postmortem and still did not extract those bullets allegedly because it would have left the body disfigured. That's ridiculous. How did they manage to recover the bullets later without disfiguring the body?" questioned an expert. The second postmortem was conducted on the insistence of senior police officers and also Supreme Court lawyer K T S Tulsi, said sources. Tulsi is believed to have convinced the victim's family that recovery of bullets was important to find out the killers.

On Monday, AIIMS forensic sciences department held a meeting to discuss the oversight but no official came on record to confirm the reason or action taken in that regard.

Delhi Police, though, stuck to its theory. "Our FSL team has visited the 42, Mandi village farmhouse and we are collecting forensic evidence that will bolster our case," claimed an officer investigating the case. The fact that the team had to visit the spot twice within four hours shows that the investigation is far from over.

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