Mohammed Ajmal Kasab’s ghost has come to haunt Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil. Or it seems. For, an article penned by him in a Diwali magazine on the secret mission Operation X involving the hanging and subsequent burial of Pakistani terrorist inside Pune’s Yerwada prison, has landed Patil in trouble.
Shiv Sena legislator Anil Parab has shot off letter to Maharashtra Governor K Sankaranarayanan, seeking the summary dismissal of Patil from the State Cabinet for allegedly “breaching" the oath of secrecy and “leaking” the hither-to “under-the-wraps” details about the execution of Kasab and subsequent disposal of the body inside Pune’s high-security prison.
Patil’s four-page article headlined Operation X, published in the special Diwali magazine-2013 brought out by leading Marathi publication Maharashtra Times, gives a detailed behind-the-scene account of the happenings relating to Kasab, one of the 10 Pakistani terrorists involved in the 26/11 attack on Mumbai – from the time the Pakistani terrorist was arrested from the vicinity of Girgaum Chowpatty in south Mumbai on the intervening night of November 26-27, 2008 up to November 21, 2012, the day he was hanged to death and later buried on the premises of the Yerwada central jail.
Given the chain of event of the leading to the execution of Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Kasab in Yerwada prison, the “Operation-X” — as the secret mission had been termed as — had naturally aroused considerable curiosity and interest among the people not just in the country and elsewhere in the world. The details of planning that had gone into the execution of Operation-X would have in the normal course remained either under wraps or in the realm of media speculation, but for spilling of beans by none-less-than Maharashtra Home Minister himself.
More than the much-discussed ranting and throwing of tantrums by Kasab at the officials of Mumbai’s Arthur Road prison where he had been lodged till days before he was moved to Pune’s Yerwada prison for his execution, what has landed Patil in the dock is the detailed manner in which the lone captured 26/11 terrorist was hanged to death and later buried.
Among other things, Patil’s article spells out minute hitherto-undisclosed details like who hanged Kasab, the exact where he came to be buried inside the Yerwada prison, the identity of the young maulvi who performed the last rites, how the employees involved in the execution of the terrorist had been trained
Taking strong exception to the manner in which Patil has chosen to leak the details of “Operation-X”, Parab – in his memorandum to the Governor – charged that the State Home Minister had compromised on the national security. The Sena MlC alleged that Patil had in the process breached the oath of secrecy that the latter had taken at the time of his swearing in as a Cabinet-ranked minister in the Maharashtra government.
“Patil, who is craving for publicity at all times, also gave away information about who performed the last rites on the terrorist…. In his article, Patil has said that the last rites of Kasab were performed by a young maulvi, who is a son of the Muslim prisoners in the Yerwada prison. From the hints given by Patil and there are not many Muslims among the jail staff, it would not be difficult to find out the exact identity of maulvi who performed Kasab’s last rites.
"If anything, Patil has exposed maulvi concerned to threats to life from terrorists and anti-nationals,” Parab wrote in his memorandum.“Similarly, Patil has disclosed as to how the Yerwada prison administration enlisted the help of prisoners to dig up three pits on the pretext installing a transformer on the jail premises and how one of the three pits was used to bury Kasab after his execution. Wouldn’t this disclosure give rise to a clamour in certain quarters in future for the construction of a memorial for Kasab at that siteIJ,” Parab asked.
Alluding to the manner in which Osama bin laden, the founder and head of Al-Qaeda, was killed at Abbottabad in Pakistani in the small hours of May 2, 2011 by the US Naval officials in a secret mission code named “Operation Neptune Spear”, Parab said in his memorandum: “ After laden's killing, neither the US President nor anybody else involved in the operation spoke about the manner in which the Al-Qaeda chief's body was disposed off .. But, Patil’s detailed account of the manner in which Kasab was hanged to death and later buried on the Yerwada jail premises, has exposed moral bankruptcy of our State Home Minister. If anything, Patil has breached the oath of secrecy that he had taken at the time of his being sworn in as a minister”
Averring that it would be futile to expect Patil to own up his moral responsibility for his faux pass and tender his resignation from the State Cabinet, Parab urged the Governor to exercise his rights under the Constitution to dismiss summarily from the State Cabinet.