The lone suspect captured by police during militants attacks on Mumbai in November expressed remorse and wept while being questioned soon after his arrest, a newspaper reported Saturday. Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, also known as Kasab, said his father forced him to join a hardline Islamist commando unit to earn money for the family, the Mumbai Mirror newspaper reported, quoting a police transcript.
The newspaper, which gave no details about how it obtained the transcript, said it was a verbatim account of Imans questioning for about an hour after his arrest. "My father told me we will get lots of money. We would be able to live like other rich people," Iman allegedly said in the transcript translated from Hindi and Urdu.
Iman, 21, is in Indian police custody and faces trial for murder and "waging war against India." Mumbai police declined comment on the report, in which one policeman was quoted as telling Iman that, "Crying like this will not help. The people who lost their lives, they were poor and innocent, like you."
Iman, accused of being part of a 10-man group that killed 165 people in a 60-hour killing spree in Mumbai, allegedly belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba. Nine gunmen were killed by Indian commandos during the attacks. Iman wept several times during the police interrogation, saying he did not know the meaning of jihad, according to the newspaper.
"What jihad? I do not know what it means. How do I explain? God will not forgive me," he was reported to have said when asked about the deadly mission. According to the newspapers account of the police transcript, Iman, along with a group of 25 people, had been trained in Pakistani militant camps since December 2007. "We were told as long as you are alive, Kill as many people as you can," Iman was quoted as saying, adding those being trained for the mission were promised "hundreds of thousands of rupees."
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