Kasab’s lying on info source,will probe: jail superintendent

Even as Ajmal Kasab informed the court on Tuesday that a jail official who was guarding him inside his solitary confinement cell housed inside the Arthur Road Jail had told him that Pakistan had accepted him as a national and this led to his confession,jail superintendent Rajendra Dhamne refuted the claim.

Dhamne claimed that Kasab was lying and said he would hold an informal inquiry to find out how he came to know of the development. “I will find out tomorrow from my officers if what he said has any credence and if the information was passed on to him by any of the jail officials. But,it won’t be a departmental inquiry.” Kasab had given a plead guilty statement in the court on Monday,but had not revealed from where he came to know of the Pakistani admission.

However,Dhamne said,“It’s not an issue if some officer speaks to him to engage him during his security,and only if my seniors ask for a report from me,will I submit it.”

Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam also had a similar view. “If the security officials had talked and shared some information with Kasab,then it is not a wrong thing to have done,” he said.

On his plans for Wednesday,he said,“I will reply to the plead guilty statement of Kasab and put forth before the court that he has deliberately left out important facts. I will assist the court in including the missing links in Kasab’s statement and to fill the gaps before the court uses its discretion on whether to accept his statement or not. We have evidence to back our case.”