Thaindian News

Mumbai, April 24 (IANS) A special court here Friday ordered a medical test to determine the correct age of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist caught alive in the November 2008 terror strike on Mumbai.
Special Judge M.L. Tahilyani’s order came on an application by Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, countering the defence plea to try Kasab as a juvenile on grounds that he is 17 years old.

The judge said the test would be conducted in the presence of the two witnesses who had first written his age - Superintendent of Arthur Road Central Jail Swati Sathe and the doctor who had first treated Kasab after his arrest in the early hours of Nov 27 last year.

The tests to be carried out include dental and bone examinations to help determine Kasab’s true age.

The Special Court conducting the trial in the Arthur Road jail premises ordered the medical report to be submitted by April 28.

Nikam had challenged the defence contention and said Kasab had given his age as 21 on three different occasions - once to the police and jail authorities, then to the doctor who examined him and the third time to the magistrate before whom he recorded his confessional statement.

Nikam had earlier this week said the prosecution had other evidence to prove that Kasab was not a minor.

The trial against Kasab, the prime accused in the Nov 26-29 Mumbai terror attack in which over 170 people were killed, began April 15. His two co-accused are Lashkar-e-Taiba activists Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Mohammed.