India secretly buries nine Mumbai attackers

MUMBAI: The bodies of nine militants killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks were secretly buried in an undisclosed place, according to state government officials.

The gunmen killed 166 people in a 60-hour rampage in India’s financial capital that traumatised the nation and strained already tense relations with Pakistan.

The burials took place in January, Maharashtra state Home Minister R.R. Patil said, giving no details of the exact date or place.

“Thirty officials were involved in the mission to dig and bury the bodies. Nobody knew about these but the officials involved,” Patil was quoted in the Indian Express newspaper on Wednesday as saying.

The bodies had remained at the J.J. Hospital morgue in Mumbai for more than a year after India’s Muslim community opposed giving them space in their graveyards.

A judge will hand down his verdict in early May in the trial of the sole surviving gunman, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, who was caught during the attacks in November 2008.

The prosecution has demanded the death penalty for Kasab and presented evidence it considers overwhelmingly proves his guilt, including a photo of him carrying an AK-47 machine gun through the main train terminal in Mumbai.

Patil announced the burials in response to legislators’ questions about the costs incurred by the state to preserve the bodies.

“I want to tell the Pakistani prime minister that if he cannot prevent terror attacks on India…we will not let them escape and will bury them in this land (India),” the minister told the legislature.

The nine militants were gunned down by security forces at separate locations across Mumbai.

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