Young girl died in mother's arms, trial told

Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 5:10 AM Posted by Beijing News


Two armed men who burst into Mumbai's main railway station during November's deadly attacks on the city killed a six-year-old girl in front of her mother, a court was told Thursday.

Giving evidence at the trial of Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, who is alleged to have been one of the gunmen, Nafisa Qureshi, 23, said she was waiting with her daughter Afreen for a delayed train when the firing started.

"At 9:30 pm I heard a loud explosion, after which there was some firing. I saw people running helter-skelter and suddenly I saw in front of me my daughter was hit in the back and I got hit on my left foot," she said.

"I saw two people about 15 feet five metres away who were just firing randomly. My daughter shivered for a short while and then collapsed in my arms and died."

Qureshi, a domestic maid, limped into the special prison court to give evidence.

"I fell unconscious due to my injuries and I regained consciousness only after three days at the J.J. Hospital," she said.

Kasab, 21, sat silently with his head bowed during her testimony, an AFP reporter in court said.

Asked to describe the gunmen by prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, Qureshi added: "I saw one man who was tall and one short."

"I can identify that he is the shorter one," she said, pointing at the defendant. On Wednesday a 10-year-old girl, who was disabled in the station shooting, also identified Kasab in court.

Kasab, said to be a member of the banned Pakistan-based Islamist group Laskhar-e-Taiba, was later caught by police after leaving the scene of the carnage in a stolen car. His accomplice, Abu Ismail, was killed.

He faces a string of charges, including "waging war against India", murder and attempted murder. He could be executed if found guilty.

A total of 52 people were killed and 109 injured in the attack on the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the bloodiest episode in three days of violence in Mumbai that left 166 people dead.

Qureshi was calm while narrating events but broke down in tears under cross-examination from Kasab's lawyer Abbas Kazmi, who suggested that she had been pressurised by police into identifying his client as one of the attackers.

"No, I'm right. You're wrong," she told the lawyer.

A second witness, Jiloo Yadav, was one of about 20 railway police officers on duty at the station that night. He also identified Kasab as one of the gunmen and said Abu Ismail was the other after being shown a photograph.

The 52-year-old head constable told the court how he was unarmed at the time but grabbed a rifle from a colleague.

He tried to fire at the two attackers but the ageing Lee-Enfield gun, a model used by the British military until the 1950s, jammed.

"I then threw a plastic chair at the terrorist but missed him. He fired back in retaliation," he said.



Janeiro. REUTERS/Alex Carvalho

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)