Trawler ‘Kuber’ was not tampered with,Nikam tells HC

Nikam was submitting arguments to justify that the fishing trawler was not tampered with before it was seized for investigations. The body of navigator Amarsinh Solanki and some GPS and satellite phones were recovered from Kuber at the instance of Kasab,he pointed out.

Justice Ranjana Desai and Justice R V More had raised queries yesterday asking Nikam to explain the sequence of events leading to seizure of Kuber because the trial court had discarded earlier evidence in this regard.

The bench wanted to know how the prosecution could justify that the vessel was not tampered with.

Nikam submitted that Kasab had confessed to having killed Solanki by slitting his throat and throwing his body in the engine room of Kuber which they had abandoned in the sea before setting out on a dingy,a rubber boat,brought from Pakistan.

Government Counsel Ujjwal Nikam submitted that the trial judge had erred in discarding the evidence leading to the seizure of Kuber.

He argued that it is not the case of Kasab or his lawyers that someone had planted Solanki’s body in the trawler. In fact,Kasab had himself confessed that he killed Solanki in the vessel,although he had retracted his version later.

Mumbai police had claimed that Kasab and nine other terrorists had started their journey from Karachi in ‘Al-husseini’ boat and then hijacked ‘Kuber’ in Indian waters and landed at Badhwar Park in south Mumbai before going separately in pairs to their assigned locations.

Kasab on Tuesday appeared for about ten minutes in the video conference link. He looked normal and did not throw tantrums as he had done earlier.