The images of Kasab ambling cockily--a backpack on his shoulders and an AK-47 dangling carelessly--captured on camera at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus(CST) on the deadly night of November 26, 2008 formed hard evidence of his ruthless act and eventually led to his conviction.
Kasab, 21 at that time, was the only gunman caught alive after 10 men from Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba(LeT) struck during a 60-hour-siege of the country's financial capital.
Hailing from an impoverished Faridkot village in Okara district in Pakistan's Punjab province, Kasab many times during the legal proceedings described himself as a patriotic Pakistani and that he had no remorse for waging war against India. His father was a food vendor.
"I have done right, I have no regrets," he is quoted as having said.
He, however, pleaded leniency on purported ground that he was brainwashed by LeT and acted like a robot.
Kasab came under the influence of LeT while he was an unemployed youth and after training in one of several remote camps in Pakisan he was hand-picked for the Mumbai operation.
In a meticulously planned terror attack on November 26, 2008, Kasab and nine others left Pakistan and entered Mumbai via sea.
The group split into pairs and stormed two luxury hotels--Taj Mahal and Oberoi Trident--CST station, a Jewish religious centre, and Leopold Caf