Can’t read Arabic,admits man who ‘translated’ 26/11 note

A translator used by the police translated it as “Yeh jang ki aur ishara hai” or “This is a pointer to war”. The 10 Lashkar attackers and those named as fugitives have been accused of waging war against the country in the chargesheet.

On Thursday,Mukhtar Pirzade,the translator,testified in court and confirmed he had translated the note given to him by the Mumbai Police Crime Branch. An insurance agent in Bhiwandi,Pirzade is regularly used as a translator by the police.

But his testimony did not stand when he was cross-examined by Abbas Kazmi,the state-appointed lawyer for Ajmal Kasab,the lone attacker captured alive. Kazmi,who has lived in Saudi Arabia for a decade and knows Arabic,spoke a line in the language and asked Pirzade what it meant.

When Pirzade said he could not figure it out,Kazmi translated it himself and said it meant “Where are you now?” Pirzade responded by saying that he did not know to read or write Arabic but could only understand it and that he had got the words in the alleged Lashkar note translated by a friend.

Kazmi also contested the translation and said that Ammar Askari was the first and second name of a person. The incident caused Special Judge M L Tahilyani to pull up the police. “Why do you go looking for translators in Bhiwandi when our Bombay High Court has full-time Urdu translators. You could have done it there,” he told the police officers and the prosecutor present in court. Urdu and Arabic use the same script.

While Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam refused to comment,Crime Branch chief Rakesh Maria dismissed the incident as inconsequential. “The words are Arabic,that is why we took the help of an Urdu translator. It is up to the translator to refer to any source he wants for translation. In any case,this issue does not have any bearing on our case,” he told The Indian Express.