The lone suspect captured by police during militants’ attacks on Mumbai in November expressed remorse and wept while being questioned soon after his arrest, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, also known as Kasab, said his father forced him to join a hard-line Islamist commando unit to earn money for the family, the Mumbai Mirror newspaper reported, quoting a police transcript.
The newspaper, which gave no details about how it obtained the transcript, said it was a verbatim account of Iman’s questioning for about an hour after his arrest.
”My father told me we will get lots of money. We would be able to live like other rich people,” Iman allegedly said in the transcript translated from Hindi and Urdu.
Iman, 21, is in Indian police custody and faces trial for murder and ”waging war against India”.
Mumbai police declined comment on the report, in which one policeman was quoted as telling Iman that, ”Crying like this will not help. The people who lost their lives, they were poor and innocent, like you.”
Iman, accused of being part of a 10-man group that killed 165 people in a 60-hour killing spree in Mumbai, allegedly belonged to the banned Pakistan-based Islamist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Nine gunmen were killed by Indian commandos during the attacks.
Iman wept several times during the police interrogation, saying he did not know the meaning of jihad (holy war), according to the newspaper.
”What jihad? I do not know what it means. How do I explain? God will not forgive me,” he was reported to have said when asked about the deadly mission.
According to the newspaper’s account of the police transcript, Iman, along with a group of 25 people, had been trained in Pakistani militant camps since December 2007.
”We were told as long as you are alive, ‘Kill as many people as you can,”’ Iman was quoted as saying, adding those being trained for the mission were promised ”hundreds of thousands of rupees”.
”They used to praise us, give us lavish lunches. They told us the job would send us to heaven, people would respect us,” he said, adding that his father introduced him to the militant group and ”told us our poverty would disappear”.
Iman was arrested on November 26. His case has been adjourned until March 23.
Both Lashkar-e-Taiba and Pakistan have denied any involvement in the attacks but Islamabad did admit recently that the strikes were partly planned on its soil, and acknowledged that Iman is a Pakistani. — AFP
