NEW DELHI — The lone surviving Pakistani gunman in a 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai was sentenced Thursday to die for his role in the bloody siege that killed 166 people and strained relations between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan.
Ajmal Amir Kasab, 22, convicted of killing 52 people, sat still in the courtroom looking ashen and staring at the floor. He wept as the judge, M.L. Tahiliyani, sentenced him to death by hanging for four offenses, including murder and waging war against India.
Ten militants attacked a railway station, two five-star hotels, a restaurant and a Jewish outreach center in the November 2008 siege of Mumbai, India’s financial nerve center. Surveillance cameras showed Kasab shooting people with an automatic weapon at the railway station before police arrested him on the first night of the attack.
According to lawyers and police officers present in the courtroom, the judge said, “The common man will lose faith in the courts if this man is let loose, if death is not awarded.”
Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said Kasab went out for a drink of water just before the sentence was read out. When the judge asked him whether he had anything to say, Kasab shook his head and sat down.
“If he did (cry), they were crocodile tears,” Nikam said of Kasab’s reaction to the sentence.
In New Delhi, law minister Veerappa Moily called the death sentence “a message to all terrorists: If you land in India, you will meet this fate.”
In the run-up to the sentencing, television channels across India ran heated debates about whether Kasab should be executed — a rare penalty in India.
On Monday, Kasab was convicted of most of 80 charges against him, including waging war against the Indian state, murder and smuggling of arms.
Kasab’s defense lawyer, K.P. Pawar, argued for life imprisonment, saying his client was young and needed a chance for reform. Kasab has the right to an appeal.
