Amin Solkar and Farhana Shah, the two newly-appointed criminal lawyers of lone surviving terrorist Ajmal Aamir Kasab, met him for the first time at the Arthur Road Jail on Saturday morning. This was the first meeting after the Maharashtra State Legal Aid Services Authority appointed Mr Solkar and Ms Shah to represent Qasab in the Bombay high court.
According to the lawyers, the meeting lasted for 20 minutes. “We spoke to him in Urdu and explained to him that we would be filing an appeal in the high court against the death penalty awarded to him by the court last month,” said Mr Solkar.
“Kasab said ‘shukriya’ for coming to meet him,” said Ms Shah, adding, “He was very normal and didn’t show any emotions.”
This is for the first time after the judgment, that Kasab had any visitor inside the jail. “We also took the original copy of judgment from him, as we have to file an appeal soon,” said Mr Solkar, adding, “He has asked for few things for which we would file an application in the high court along with the appeal. However, the lawyers said that they will take some time before they file the appeal. “But we will try to file it as earlier as possible,” said Ms Shah.
On May 22, Kasab had made a written application in Urdu asking for legal aid to challenge the death penalty. Judge M.L. Tahiliyani on May 4, had sentenced Kasab to death penalty on four counts and life sentence on five counts.
While the court had acquitted two Indians — Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmed —from the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case.