Trial begins next week,Ajmal isnt worried: Ab mujhe jannat mil jayegi

Mujhe bhi usi din jannat milni chahiye thi, (Even I should have gone to heaven that day) he is believed to often tell his guards,referring to his nine Lashkar-e-Toiba comrades who were killed in shootouts during the 60-hour siege of Mumbai. Lekin ab bhi mujhe jannat mil jayegi (But I will still go to heaven now).

These and other details about the working of the mind of Indias most high-profile prisoner were revealed to The Sunday Express by top security sources with access to information about Kasabs life in Mumbais Arthur Road jail,days before the start of the trial expected to grab international attention.

Kasab was shifted to the high-security jail in the heart of south-central Mumbai on February 17 from a lock-up in Mumbai Polices Crime Branch and he has since never shown any sense of repentance or remorse for his actions the killing of 55 people at the CST station and the gunning down of top cops Hemant Karkare,Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar,among others executed along with his fellow attacker Abu Ismail.

He remains highly indoctrinated and completely unrepentant. He seems more radical than any of the Muslim terrorists we have caught in Mumbai since the 1993 blasts. He keeps talking about the zulum (atrocities) heaped on Muslims in India and has even referred to Gujarat in his conversations, said a source.

For a 21-year-old unlettered,poor Pakistani who became the face of the 26/11 horror to the world,life in prison has been rather uneventful compared to his nearly three months in the custody of the Crime Branch,where he was regularly questioned in the run-up to the drafting of the chargesheet.

Kasab is lodged in the so-called anda cell or the egg cell as the barracks are in an oval shape and are meant for the most dreaded prisoners. The entire place was emptied of its 75 prisoners to make it secure for Kasab,who lives in a 6 ft x 8 ft,high-ceiling cell which also has a toilet and bathing area in a corner with 24-hour water supply.

Three unarmed guards and four CCTV cameras watch him round the clock. Only highly trusted staff and guards have been assigned to guard him with one source saying that 90 percent of the jail staff have not even come anywhere near Kasabs cell.

Kasab rises at 6 am and offers the first of his five prayers on the bare cell floor with a jail cap acting as the prayer cap. Breakfast consists of either poha or upma or sheera and comes with a glass of milk and fruit. The vegetarian lunch and dinner is four chapatis,a bowl of rice,dal and vegetables. While Kasab polishes off his meals in a few minutes,he is once said to have asked why the quality of rice used was poor and if there was no basmati available.

But that does not seem to have hurt his well-being as he has put on four kilos since February 17,a source said. Every meal is checked by the jail doctor and tasted by jail staff before it is served to him for fear of poisoning.

Like all prisoners,Kasab has two pairs of jail uniform a white half T-shirt and a white pajama that stops at his shin. He washes them in the cell and dries them on the floor. For his court appearances through video conferences,he is dressed up in a borrowed T-shirt and trousers. While the fair,clean-shaven youngster of 26/11 has been given one haircut in jail,he has refused a shave and grown a thick beard saying a jihadi needs to sport one.

Jail officials are also said to have acquiesced as shaving poses the risk of the prisoner deliberately injuring himself.

But the solitary confinement is apparently getting to the Lashkar man. One recent evening,he was seen sitting on the floor trying to chat up his guards for a while,his thin mattress on one side and his bulky chargesheet on the other. Then he got up and walked briskly up and down the cell,a distance of eight or nine paces each way,before going back to the railing door of the cell and standing there and again chatting with the guards.

He seems to hate being alone. He asks to be given work,wants to read newspapers and pray with other prisoners, said the source,adding that Kasab,however,sleeps well.

What has surprised Kasabs minders is his language skills. While it was known that the Pakistani from Faridkot in Punjab province who studied only up to Class 4 could speak Urdu and Punjabi,he recently surprised judge M L Tahilyani by showing that he understood a bit of English. Security sources said that it has now come to their knowledge that he even knows Pashto and has picked up a bit of Marathi as he seems to understand some of the conversations of the jail guards.