Mumbai:
Ajmal Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist caught alive after the Mumbai attacks, was brought face-to-face today with Abu Jundal, the alleged 26/11 handler. According to police sources, Kasab has identified Jundal as one of the handlers who instructed the team of 10 terrorists that struck Mumbai on November 26, 2008.
After the Maharashtra state government permitted the Mumbai police today to question Kasab, the two men were brought together at the Arthur Road jail, where Kasab is lodged in a bulletproof cell. The police interrogated the duo for one-and-a-half hours on the Mumbai attacks, say sources.
During the interrogation, sources say Kasab identified Jundal as the man who taught the terrorists Hindi and familiarised them with the parts of Mumbai. Jundal also identified Kasab as one of the men who he had trained, claim cources.
Kasab had named Jundal among 13 Pakistani handlers who, he said, had come to see the 10 terrorists off as they boarded the Al Hussain, the Pakistani ship, in which they sailed from Karachi to Mumbai on November 23, 2008. Ansari has reportedly retracted a similar statement and said he did not go to see the 10 men off.
It was Kasab who told interrogators that Jundal taught the terrorists Hindi and familiarised them with the parts of Mumbai. There are also reports that Jundal might have shared a room with Kasab and his fellow terrorists when they received training at a Lashkar e Taiba camp.
Sources had said the police wanted to study the differences and discrepancies in the accounts of the two men about the planning and execution of the 26/11 attack.
The Crime Branch of the Mumbai Police had written to the state government last week, seeking to interrogate Kasab, who has been at the Arthur Road Jail since 2008. Jundal, whose real name is Zaibuddin Ansari, was deported to India after his arrest in Saudi Arabia in June this year. He is an Indian who was allegedly a member of the terror outfit Indian Mujahideen before joining the deadly Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Investigators say Abu Jundal is one of many aliases that Ansari is believed to have used as a Lashkar operative; it was as Jundal that he allegedly provided training to Kasab and the nine other men who attacked Mumbai. Sources claim he shared with interrogators, details of ISI officers and top Lashkar leaders, who he says supervised the control room in Karachi from where he, along with five other handlers, instructed the 10 terrorists on the ground in Mumbai about how to strike.
Ansari is suspected to have been involved in several other terror attacks and plans in India like the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case. He was in jail in Delhi for a month before being shifted to Mumbai on July 21 to be interrogated in the 26/11 case. His custody with the crime branch has been extended by a court till August 13.