Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone suriving gunman in the Mumbai terror attack held guilty today, is a school dropout who saw 'jihad' as a purpose of his life.
The images of the 22-year-old Pakistani national, ambling cockily in his cargo pants and sneakers, a backpack on his shoulders and an AK-47 gun dangling carelessly from his arm still sents shivers among the survivors of the terror attack.
Kasab, the face of the devastating Mumbai attack in which 166 persons were killed, took part in the bloodiest episode of the 60-hour siege that started on the night of November 26, 2008.
He was one of the two heavily armed gunmen who opened fire and threw hand grenades at the city's main railway station Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus(CST) in the initial hours of the carnage killing 52 people and injuring more than 100.
He was among 10 activists of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba who crossed the sea from Karachi to enter Mumbai to wreak havoc on the country’s financial capital and bring the megalopolis to its knees before being caught alive.
Kasab, a small time thief from Pakistan specially recruited and trained by LeT, started seeing 'jihad' as a purpose of his life and means to gain respectability in his society. One Faridkot farmer reportedly said that Kasab used to return to the village and talk of "freeing Kashmir".
Kasab has reportedly said he joined the LeT to get weapons training after deciding to embark on a life of crime but there have also been claims that his father Mohammed Amir Iman duped him into doing it for money.
Born in Faridkot village in Dipalpur tehsil of Okara district in Pakistan’s Punjab province in 1987, Kasab belonged to the 'Kasai' (butcher) caste. His father ran a food stall in the village and his mother was called Noor.
Third of the five children in the family, Kasab dropped out of school in 2000 because of poverty. He stayed at a shrine and started working as a labourer earning meagre amount of money in Lahore until 2005. He later fought with his parents and left home with the determination of never returning.
