India Hangs Mumbai Attacker Ajmal Kasab, buried at Pune's Yerwada Jail.

Members of India's main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) celebrate after India hanged Ajmal Kasab

India Hangs Mumbai Attacker Ajmal Kasab, buried at Pune's Yerwada Jail.(NDtv).Mumbai: Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, 25, the only terrorist caught alive during the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, was hanged at Pune's Yerwada Jail at 7:30 this morning. It was a swift and secret execution, just two weeks after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his mercy petition.
Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, who said it was all in a day's work, told NDTV that not one of his Cabinet colleagues knew that Kasab would be hanged today and would have learnt of it from TV. A few hours after he was hanged, Kasab's body was buried at the Pune jail. Pakistan's interior minister Rehman Malik told NDTV that no request had been made by Kasab's family for repatriation of his body. "As and when such a request is made, we will approach India accordingly," he said.
A Pakistani human rights activist, Ansar Burney, has now offered to claim the terrorist's body, "on humanitarian grounds." Soon after Kasab was hanged, Mr Shinde said India had informed the Pakistan government yesterday about Kasab's hanging, but, he said, Islamabad had refused to acknowledge the letter that was both couriered and faxed through its high commission in Delhi. Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said it was faxed after India tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to give it to Pakistan by hand. (Read) Pakistan has refuted this saying it has "received and acknowledged" India's note. India's foreign ministry sources say Islamabad did, however, accept its request for enhanced security for Indian diplomats in Pakistan. Sources said the government also sent word about Kasab's execution by a special letter to an address in Pakistan that the terrorist had given as that of his family. Kasab, who was informed on November 12 that he would be hanged, had reportedly requested that his mother be informed about it. He had no other last wish and left no will. 
The President rejected Ajmal Kasab's mercy petition on November 5, Mr Shinde said. Paperwork between Delhi and Mumbai done, Kasab was moved from his bullet-proof, secure cell in Mumbai's Arthur Road jail to Pune on Monday. The Yerwada jail is one of two in Maharashtra equipped to handle execution by hanging. The process thereafter was kept top secret, with even the most senior officials informed only on a need to know basis. "These are sensitive matters...we managed to keep it secret," Mr Khurshid said. Mr Shinde was more specific. He said his department kept the execution plan under wraps since it did not want to encounter pressure from international NGOs or "someone moving Supreme Court. "It is my nature that I maintain secrecy on such things. I am trained to be a policeman," Mr Shinde, adding that none of his cabinet colleagues or UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi knew about the execution happening today. "They would have got to know from television when channels started reporting this morning," he said. An hour after Kasab was hanged today, Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil made an official announcement saying, "I sincerely believe this is a tribute to all innocent people and the officers who lost their lives in the Mumbai attacks." In his plea before the Supreme Court Kasab had said that he had not been given a fair trial. But the Supreme Court had rejected that contention and Justice CK Prasad had observed, "I am more than certain that the planning and conspiracy to commit the crime were hatched in Pakistan, the perpetrators of crime were Pakistani trained at different centres in that country, and the devastation which took place at various places in the city of Mumbai, were executed by the appellant in furtherance thereof." Read the full story here.