RAWALPINDI - The Mumbai attack case took a new turn when a person who introduced himself as a teacher of the school where Ajmal Kasab studied and claimed he was alive.
The teacher identified himself as Mudassir Lakhvi produced a register, containing Kasab’s name, before Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Judge Attiqur Rehman.
Lakhvi claimed Kasab had taken admission in Government Elementary School Naveedkot, tehsil Depalpur, district Okara, in February 1997. He added Kasab had left the school in March 2000 when he was in class five.
However, he was answerless when asked where he had gone after leaving the school. When the court asked him whether he knew the person whose name had been entered in the register, he replied, “I know him and even met him two days back. I hugged him and spent some time with him.”
He also claimed that the person executed in India in connection with the Mumbai attacks was not his pupil.
When the court asked him whether he could produce his pupil in the court his reply was in the affirmative. When asked how Kasab was discharged from the school, the teacher failed to give a satisfactory answer.
However, FIA Special Prosecutor Chaudhry Muhammad Azhar told the court that he doubted the authenticity of the claims and wanted to re-examine the claims and the register.
When contacted, Azhar said the person who claimed he was Kasab’s teacher was Lakhvi. “I think he is a relative of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and came here to meet him,” he said. However, he confirmed that the register was original. The court fixed May 14 for further hearing of the case.
Muhammad Ajmal Kasab was hanged on November 21, 2012, on the charge of carrying out the Mumbai attacks in November 2008.