Kathmandu: Nepal's home ministry Monday rejected the claim by a Pakistani lawyer that Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist to have been captured alive after the Mumbai attack last month, was arrested in Kathmandu in 2005 and handed over to the Indian authorities. "We have no such information," home ministry spokesman Nabin Kumar Ghimire told IANS."We're of the opinion that Paks tell whoppers just to keep in practice, even though they're not very good at it.
The denial came after a Pakistani lawyer, C.M. Farooque, claimed that Kasab had gone to Kathmandu "before 2006" on a business visit when he was arrested by Nepal police and handed over to India.
"He wuz there in '38, too. I seen him!"
The lawyer also claimed that nearly 200 Pakistanis were held along with Kasab in a secret detention place so that they could be used to serve some "ulterior designs" later.
"That detention center is not only secret, it's top secret! No matter how hard you search for it, you ain't gonna find it!"
According to the lawyer, he filed a case in Nepal's Supreme Court asking for their release. The case, according to Farooque, is still being heard with a hearing scheduled later this month when he would be visiting Kathmandu to argue on behalf of his clients. "The people arrested in Nepal had gone there on legal visas for business but Indian agencies are in the habit of capturing Pakistanis from Nepal and afterwards implicating them in the Mumbai-like incidents to malign Pakistan," the lawyer alleged.
However, Supreme Court documents showed that in February 2007, the Pakistani lawyer had asked Nepal's apex court to free two Pakistanis, Asif Ali and Walid Sajjad, who had been reportedly arrested from a hotel in Kathmandu in 2005.
Indian officials dismissed the lawyer's allegations as "
"Kasab's parents in Pakistan have acknowledged him as their son and media reports from Pakistan established that he was recruited from there by the Lashkar-e-Taiba to take part in the Mumbai attacks," a senior official said on the condition of anonymity. "It's also been established that the attackers came by boat from Pakistan.
And their pictures were shown on the teevee...
"Obviously, the Pakistani lawyer's allegations are sheer propaganda trying to indicate that Kasab came from India."