Heavy rain hits Kasab trial,water in court

After a break of two days,Mumbai received heavy rainfall on Wednesday resulting in flooding in low-lying areas and disruption of train and flight services.

The downpour disrupted court proceedings in the 26/11 attacks trial. There was water logging inside the court premises,and knee-level water in the passage leading up to the court. The court proceedings had to be adjourned and special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam informed the court that a witness scheduled to depose in court couldnt turn up due to the heavy rains and sought an adjournment.

Scenes of pedestrians,BEST buses and taxis being stranded,especially in parts of Central Mumbai,brought back memories of some of the worst flooding in the city in recent years.

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The east-west trough over Mumbai along with suitable cloud conditions resulted in heavy rainfall since late Tuesday night till Wednesday afternoon. The trough is still over Mumbai and spells of heavy rainfall for five to six hours may continue on Thursday, said deputy director,IMD,R V Sharma.

The suburban local services on Central Railway and Western Railway were affected during peak hours in the morning. The rains also affected flight movements at the Mumbai airport causing an average delay of 15 minutes in arrivals and 30 minutes in departures. Although visibility conditions improved later in the day,the airports runways had to be closed for about 30 minutes in the morning due to extremely poor visibility. Traffic on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway was also disrupted.

Kasab demands more books

Mumbai: Ajmal Kasab,the lone terrorist captured in the Mumbai terror attacks,on Wednesday,demanded more books from the court. He told his lawyer Abbas Kazmi to purchase the books by utilizing the money the police had seized from him at the time of his arrest. This is the second time that Kasab has made such a request to the court. Kazmi,after talking to Kasab inside the courtroom,informed the judge that Kasab was getting bored and impatient inside the cell and wanted to read some books. However,Kazmi explained to Kasab that the money had become the property of the court and could be released. He assured the court that he would provide him some more books at his own expense as he had done earlier. ens