Enough, already

For a city bloodied enough already, a year and a few days later, one misguided youth is still bleeding the wound.

Ajmal Amar Kasab stated in court today that he had nothing to do with the 26/11 attacks. That he had been taken into custody days before the strikes. That he had no idea which rubber dinghy or which AK-57 he was supposed to have been associated with. That he had been framed and that he had actually come to India on a visa because he wanted to try his luck in Hindi films. Read the prosecution's take on the issue here.

Which would all have made for a good defence, if it had come at the start of the trial and not before.

Kasab started the year-long trial with arrogance. Then he went from being cocky to subdued, sometimes appearing uncomfortable if a particular witness not just identified him but wished for the harshest punishments possible for him. Is this an attempt to end the saga of the world's longest and most horrific terror strike on a bang of a different kind?

I'm trying to be rational about the fact that this trial, with all its witnesses and a terrorist captured ALIVE, has taken this long even to reach its summation stages. At times I feel pride in our democracy, because it gives each person a chance to have a say in the course of justice. And then a man who came with nine others to my city to kill and kill some more shows me and everyone else just why he should probably not have been tried fairly.

Today, I felt remorse about being rational.