Pakistan’s Taliban vows revenge on India for Mumbai attacker’s execution

July 31, 2016

By Talia Ralph

An Indian activist of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) uses a shoe to hit an effigy representing Pakistani Mohammed Ajmal Kasab in Hyderabad on May 7, 2010, to celebrate the death sentence verdict handed down to Kasab.
NOAH SEELAM

Pakistan's Taliban has vowed Thursday to retaliate against India's execution of the only surviving Mumbai massacre attacker.

Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani who was part of the militant group that killed 166 people during a three-day rampage in Mumbai in 2008, was executed in India on Wednesday. He faced 86 charges, including murder and waging war against India, Reuters reported.

The massacre, which was carried out throughout the city and broadcast on television, significantly damaged relations between Pakistan and India.

"We have decided to target Indians to avenge the killing of Ajmal Kasab," said Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan by telephone from an undisclosed location. "If they don't return his body to us or his family we will capture Indians and will not return their bodies," he said.

India said they buried Kasab in the "surrounding area" of the jail where he was hanged; they did not disclose what burial rites had been performed, CNN reported.

It was the first execution in India since 2004.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said that India would weigh any formal request from either Pakistan's government or Kasab's family to return his body, but said they had not received any such request, the Associated Press reported.

The Pakistani government has barely commented on the execution so far, with the Foreign Office spokesman saying only that "Islamabad was against all forms of terrorism and would cooperate with countries in the region to tackle the menace," the Indian Express reported.

The foreign ministry did not comment Thursday on the Taliban's threats, according to CNN.