Ajmal Kasab broke down in the court room after he was condemned to death in the Mumbai terror attack trial on Thursday but the public prosecutor called it "crocodile tears".
As special judge M L Tahilyani read out the death sentence handed over to the 22-year-old Pakistani terrorist, the lone surviving gunman in 26/11, Kasab was seen sobbing. He also asked for a glass of water.
After the sentence was read out, the Judge explained it to him in Hindi that he had been given death penalty on four counts and whether he wanted to say anything.
But Kasab simply shook his head after which he was taken away by the police back to his cell in the Arthur road jail.
Kasab dressed in a white kurta-pyjama sat with his head in his hands staring at the floor of the dock as the judge issued the sentennce, three days after he was convicted in the Mumbai carnage in which he and nine Pakistani accomplices killed 166 persons.
Emerging out of the court room at the high security Arthur Road jail, Ujjwal Nikam, the Special Public Prosecutor, was asked about Kasab crying in the court room. His reply: "Those were crocodile tears." Kasab was his normal self, even asked for a glass of water and was at peace with himself after drinking it, he said.
Nikam also recited a Sanskrit verse to mean that no matter how much milk is given to a snake, it will always spew venom. PTI
