The bodies of nine militants killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks have been secretly buried in an undisclosed place, state government officials said.
The gunmen killed 166 people in a 60-hour rampage in India’s financial capital that traumatized the nation and strained already tense relations with Pakistan.
The burials took place in January, Maharashtra state home minister R.R. Patil said, giving no details of the exact date or place.
“Thirty officials were involved in the mission to dig and bury the bodies. Nobody knew about these but the officials involved,” Patil was quoted in the Indian Express newspaper as saying yesterday.
MORGUE
The bodies had remained at the J.J. Hospital morgue in Mumbai for more than a year after India’s Muslim community opposed giving them space in their graveyards.
A judge is expected to hand down his verdict early next month in the trial of the sole surviving gunman, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, who was caught during the attacks in November 2008.
The prosecution has demanded the death penalty for Kasab and presented evidence it considers overwhelmingly proves his guilt, including a photo of him carrying an AK-47 machine gun through the main train terminal in Mumbai.
COSTS
Patil announced the burials in response to legislators’ questions about the costs incurred by the state to preserve the bodies.
“I want to tell the Pakistan prime minister that if he cannot prevent terror attacks on India ... we will not let them escape and will bury them in this land [India],” the minister told the legislature.
The nine militants were gunned down by security forces at separate locations across Mumbai.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS