Mumbai police have demanded the death penalty for the lone surviving suspect from November's militant attacks on the city, ahead of a trial expected to begin Monday. Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, also known as Kasab, has been in police custody since November 26 and faces trial for murder and “waging war against India.” “We have demanded the death penalty for him,” Jayant Patil, home minister for Mumbai's state of Maharashtra, told reporters. The penalty was called for because it was the rarest of rare cases, he added. Iman appeared before an Indian court via videolink earlier on March 9 and was remanded in custody for a further two weeks. He is accused of being part of a 10-man group that killed 165 people in the November 26-29 killing spree in Mumbai. Nine gunmen were killed by Indian commandos during the attacks. Both Lashkar-e-Taiba and Pakistan have denied any involvement in the attacks but Islamabad did admit recently that the strikes were partly planned on its soil, and acknowledged that Iman is a Pakistani. Two Indian nationals have also been charged for allegedly giving logistical support to the attackers. Kasab reading Gandhi The lone suspect captured by police during the Mumbai attacks in November is reading the autobiography of India's revered independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, a report said Saturday. Kasab is reading an Urdu translation of Gandhi's autobiography “My Experiments With Truth” in prison, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported. “Prisoners are generally given books as part of reforms and recreation programs,” T.R.K. Somaiya, the programme coordinator of the Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal Gandhi book center, told the news agency. “Jail authorities have told us that Kasab has been given the Urdu translation of Gandhi's book and that he is reading it,” he said. Meanwhile, the Indian government has imposed a ban on airing clips of the hearing of Ajmal Kasab's case, the Indian Information Ministry said in a statement Friday.
