ajmal kasab

Pakistani gunman terrorist Ajmal Kasab today claimed he was not part of the 26/11 attacks conspiracy hatched in Pakistan by LeT and argued his confession recorded by a magistrate and plea of guilt made before the trial court should be discarded as they were contrary to each other.

The arguments were made by Kasab's lawyer Amin Solkar before justices Ranjana Desai and R V More of the Bombay High Court who are hearing confirmation of death sentence awarded to him by the trial court for his role in the 26/11 terror attacks.

The defence lawyer argued that there was no material to suggest that Kasab was part of the Terrorist conspiracy relating to attacks on Hotel Taj Mahal, Hotel Oberoi-Trident and Nariman House. His role was confined only to attacks at Chhatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus and in and around Cama Hospital.

"At the most, it can be said that Kasab had performed the role of a contract killer and could be held responsible for the death of persons at CST and in surrounding areas," Solkar argued.

The basic thrust of arguments by the defence lawyer was to minimise the role of Kasab in the conspiracy and aim at commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment.

Kasab had no role to play in the attacks on hotels Taj Mahal, Oberoi and Nariman House and there is no evidence to this effect, Solkar submitted.

Kasab did not appear today on the screen put up in the court for the video conference link to enable him to hear arguments from jail.

Solkar said when an accused makes a confession it could result in conviction. Similarly, when a guilt plea is made before the court it should be considered like confession.

In this case, Kasab has made a confession as well as guilt plea. Both these confessions were contradictory to each other and should not be accepted because they create doubts as to which one should be believed, he argued.

Pointing out the contradictions in confession and guilt plea of Kasab, Solkar said Kasab had admitted before a magistrate that he had killed Amarsing Solanki, navigator of fishing trawler Kuber through which terrorists arrived in Mumbai by sea route. He also admitted to have killed police officer Tukaram Ombale in an encounter at Chowpatty.

However, in the guilt plea, Kasab denied having killed Solanki and Ombale. He had told the trial court that he was not aware who killed Solanki and that he had seen slain terrorist Shoaib coming out of boat's cabin with a knife smeared with blood and throwing it in the sea.

In the guilt plea, Kasab had also said that outside Cama Hospital he and Abu Ismail were under attack from police officers in a jeep and that before he could retaliate the policemen fired at him because of which he sustained injury in hand. He also blamed Ismael for killing officers Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar and Ashok Kamte.

In the guilt plea, Kasab said that at Girgaum Chowpatty, constable Tukaram Ombale had caught hold of his collar and pulled him out of the car in which he was seated with Ismael. Kasab further said he was surrounded by policemen who assaulted him and he fell unconscious. When he gained consciousness he was in hospital.

However, in confession before a magistrate Kasab had admitted to have killed Ombale.

Denying role of Kasab in the conspiracy, his lawyer said at the most it can be said Kasab had executed the conspiracy and that he could be charged for murders like any other contract killer.

Tourism and Terrorism

Tourism is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of mankind. It appeared as such in the 19th century, when many people began to travel for pleasure and entertainment. From that moment on it has played a major role in the public life. It became possible for a lot of people to travel abroad and to get acquainted with other countries. But since then a certain negative aspects of social life have hindered the development of Tourism. One of them is terrorism. Tourism and terrorism can't coexist in one place at the same time. On the contrary, countries where mass terrorist acts occur are not visited by many tourists and their tourist industry is in recession. A typical example in this relation is Israel. The country lies on the Mediterranean coast and has a very pleasant climatic conditions for mass recreational and cultural tourism(there are many historical sites and monuments), but the constant political tension and instability,the numerous suicidal attacks on public buildings, murders etc repel tourists. In their minds the name 'Israel' always will be associated with these things. Feeling threatened to loose their lives they will avoid this destination or visit it rarely. Similar example are the countries in Norther n Africa where a strong Islamic fundamentalism exists. Terrorism has a strong negative impact even in countries where there is a stable political system and strong traditions in the field of democracy. The collapse of the two twin towers in USA at 11th September 2001 was a major hit for the economy of USA and its tourism. The fear of more terrorist strikes caused many tourists,who intended to visit USA to cancel their trips. That reflected and enhanced the effect of the economic slump, which followed.

Statistical research reveals,that tourists react very sensitively to such calamities when making their choice of a tourist destination. A single terrorist attack can have a strong influence in a tourist spot or a whole tourist country. Where terrorist actions take lives of tourists the recovery of tourism is very difficult. . In Spain the renewed terrorist activity of the Basque separatists,deviated many tourists to the neighbouring destinations. The freedom of movement and restricted visa limitations for tourist travellers make it easy for terrorists disguised as tourists,to penetrate in a a certain tourist spot. A fresh example of that kind of terrorism is Egypt. Two years ago a bus full of tourists visiting the Pyramids was blown up by suicide terrorists,which merged with the crowd. As a result of that the tourism demand for Egypt dropped dramatically and the whole image of the country as a tourist destination was ruined. All these examples come to show how destructive the international terrorism may be not only for tourism but the whole economy and reputation of the country on the international stage.

That is why an international cooperation in the field of politics is needed to offset the negative consequences and if possible to prevent any future terrorist acts. The war against terror demands collective efforts of governments of all states and strong coordination between them. This will allow the terrorism to be rooted out from our modern society once and for all.

Anti-Terrorism Law - Punishing the Innocent?

Terrorism has been one of most prominent issues in recent years. The issue has been further outraged by the acts carried out during 9/11 and 7/7. This has prompted the government to come up with solutions to prevent these atrocities, hence the contraction of human rights began. The question arises as to whether anti-terrorism law restricts human rights.

One of the most prominent legislation to combat this was the Terrorism Act 2006. The Act contains a relative package of measures designed to ensure that police, secret agencies and the courts have all the tools to tackle terrorism, bringing perpetrators to justice. The Act received royal assent on the 30th of March 2006. This Act was not designed as a direct response to the July attacks as it had been planned before the attack. However, one needs to ask the question - does it not create the risk of punishing the innocent?

The amendment puts forward the discretion of detaining a suspected 'terrorist' for forty two days, the question should be asked: on what basis? Law is a field that deals with every day problems but that is only if it has any relevant evidence or witnesses to assist a case. It just does not make logical sense to detain someone for forty two days without evidence. In the eyes of the law a perpetrator is innocent until proven guilty. Why is it not possible to detain a suspected paedophile for forty two days? Is he not a danger to the public at large? But a 'terrorist' who could be innocent by all means, may be detained for a lengthy period of time. Anti-terrorism law takes away the fair retribution which the law is there to provide and puts forward somewhat a conspicuous law that seems unfair on those convicted, it lacks foundation and basis.

Miscarriages of justice

Charles De Menezes, the Brazilian who was shot dead in the tube station. He was shot eleven times altogether with seven being fired in the head and four in the chest. The body of the Brazilian man was said to be unidentifiable afterwards. The point being, the new terrorism law has provided greater authority to the police but does it not create a greater risk of such acts being carried out again? It would seem to the lay man that the police are being given power to such an extent it can no longer be called 'discretion'. It would seem here that De Menezes' human rights was restricted not merely because he had lost his life but he was attacked without warning. Some may argue that it was to protect the safety of the larger population and if that is the case then, why was he allowed to go onboard a train and why was he not under house arrest if he was to be a potential risk? Questions with no answers, even today.

The second such example is the shooting of the two brothers in Forest Gate, the Kahar brothers, they were unlawfully shot in the chest and had their property searched without a warrant or warning. This occured apparently under the new 'terrorism' procedures. Again it all boils down to the power being given to the police via the anti-terrorism law. There is the inherent danger that it may re-create such 'accidents' again. There is no guarantee and this may even open up a gaping hole to abuse the law.

Anti-terrorism law has somewhat restricted the human rights of the Kahar brothers. They were lucky to see daylight again. With the law being in place to protect the greater public and so much trust being placed on their judgment, why is it that innocent civilians are being targeted by the police? The law restricts their human rights as rightful law abiding citizens and the law needs to be amended to allow absolutely no harm to individuals. At the same time, we cannot forget the safety of the greater the public.

The legislation allowing phone tapping is a cause for concern for the civilians. It disregards their right to privacy and disrespects their rightful belief in the higher authorities. Phone tapping allows for the secret agencies to pick up on private conversations. This method would be breaching the privacy of the individuals. However, it is understandable that in extreme cases, if there is a suspect and there is concrete evidence and reasoning to convict one of terrorism or conspiring to terrorise, then the phone should be tapped to acquire information. But this should later be disclosed to the convict when under questioning as it is breaches their right to privacy.

Questions with no answers

Anti-terrorism law to a major extent not only takes away but disregards the rights of individuals and more importantly those who are innocent. The question should arise - why should an innocent civilian without any evidence or witness spend forty two days in detainment? Why is it possible for the police to shoot innocent people that they believe to be 'terrorists'? Is there no discretionary margin to prevent this? Finally, why can people not enjoy the privacy that every individual is entitled to?

The law is somewhat derogatory to the UK constitution after the much maligned enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998. Furthermore, the purpose of the law is to provide the public safety but with cases like De Menezes and Kahar, it seems unlikely that until the law is amended, the human rights of individuals are not to be violated.

Role of Youth to Combat Terrorism

Youth power is an absolute power for a nation's strength and its pride. A nation's off springs uphold its pride up in the hands of mind, thoughts, feelings and vigorous courage, surely never ending never ending and forever. Youth with the power of vision explore incredible horizons for its nation's splendour, dignity and prominence, youth with the power of vision indiscriminately have warmly beauteous feelings for each and every one around them no matter they match their race or not.

Wise and visionary youth ranges sympathy, peace, harmony, symphony, and leniency discipline rather every type of beauty to the boundaries having no boundary. Youth are a strength of any nation and that is the only way for a any nation to fight the menace of terrorism as only this way it is guaranteed that this nuisance is rotted out because extremism is something that breeds terrorism and to address the root cause i.e. Extremism; it then becomes inevitable to concentrate on the youth, as according to many researches it has been so far deducted that youth are the ones that are most vulnerable and largely exploited by elements who tends to harbour terrorism. As this is the age group that is very aggressive but at the same time very naive and can easily get carried away in flow of their emotions; where as people who have mastered in the art of harbouring human resource for such notorious activities they then have to do very little efforts to get them off-track. Therefore it is binding upon the youth to also make themselves aware of such actors; so that they either in oblivion or with consent become their tool and make sure they also pinpoint and confront such elements in the society who sympathies or either supports such elements or activities that ends up what in modern world is called Terrorism.

There are numerous such forums where one can raise their voice such violence over the Horizon is one of such forum; where such issues are discussed and thorough deliberations are carried out as how to tackle such issues and provide opportunity for a common man to reach out and raise their voice in the power corridors of the state.