Keeping Kasab alive costs more than 11 crore

Keeping Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist in the 26/11 Mumbai attack facing a death penalty, costs the Indian exchequer a fortune.

Well the Maharashtra government got a shock when it was thrust a bill of nearly Rs 11 crore by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) for guarding Kasab in the Arthur Road jail of Mumbai, media reports said.

While this is only one bill sent by the ITBP, the actual cost of keeping him alive is much more owing the bulletproof arrangements, food and other essentials in a high security environment.

Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil said he would take a decision on the bill soon, but he did not seem too happy with it.

On Feb 21 on expected lines, the Bombay High Court upheld the death sentence of Ajmal Kasab earlier passed by a lower court.

Kasab, who the court said killed 56 people along with another terrorist Abu Ismail and alone killed seven, has the option to move the Supreme Court.

He was responsible for the killing of Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare and Kamte Ashok Kamte, the Additional Commissioner of Mumbai Police.

The 24-year-old Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab was one of the ten terrorists from Pakistan who arrived by seawaters and attacked several locations in Mumbai in Nov 2008 that left 166 people dead and 238 injured.

The court said the attack of 26/11 was an attack on the government and upheld that the attack was waging war on India.

The court said Kasab’s crime was “diabolical and brutal” and he has a “scheming mind”.