New Delhi: The Supreme Court will continue hearing Ajmal Kasab's plea against his death sentence in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case. Kasab had pleaded with the Supreme Court to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment. The lone surviving gunman of the 26/11 attacks has been sentenced with death penalty. The sentencing was awarded by a trial court in May 2010 and upheld by the Bombay High Court in February 2011.
The apex court had in February, 2012, heard recorded tapes of conversations shared between Kasab and his handlers in Pakistan during the 2008 attacks. Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who has been appointed as amicus curiae by the apex court to defend Kasab, had told a bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam that he was not a part of the larger conspiracy for waging war against the nation.
Stressing on Kasab's age as an important factor to commute his sentence, he had pleaded for a lenient approach as he was drawn into this by exploitation of religious faith and false ideology.
The Maharashtra government had, however, opposed Kasab's plea for leniency in the Supreme Court. Placing arguments in the court, the Maharashtra government had said, "Kasab's rights have not been violated."
The Maharashtra government had also said that death was a permissible means of punishment. It also claimed that his latest request was a conspiracy.
In the special leave petition filed by Kasab challenging the Bombay High Court judgement, he claimed he was brainwashed like a "robot" into committing the heinous crime in the name of "God" and that he does not deserve capital punishment owing to his young age.
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