Spot the difference: The similarities between captured terrorists Kasab, Naved

“Allah mujhe maaf nahin karega (Allah will not forgive me for this)” After he was caught on Marine Drive in the early hours of 27 November, 2008, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab lay in a hospital bed covered by a blanket as a patient police official asked him questions on everything ranging from the planning and what he did in Pakistan, to how the attack was carried out. On 5 August, when Mohammed Naved was caught thanks to a considerable amount of bravery by a group of people he’d held hostage, he was equally candid about his involvement in the Udhampur attack that left two security personnel dead. But there are more reasons why Indians and the Indian media quickly began calling him the ‘second Kasab’. The similarities in appearance [caption id=“attachment_2381366” align=“alignleft” width=“825”]  Mohammed Naved and Mohammad Ajmal Kasab. PTI, Reuters image[/caption] A young man like Kasab, Naved has claimed that he is just 20 years-old, but then changed it to 16. Dressed in a black shirt and brown trousers, Naved looked at ease as he spoke with his captors about why he was there, how many had crossed the border and how they had carried out the operation. Kasab had also claimed he was a juvenile and had been photographed during the attacks dressed in a black t-shirt, cargo pants and sneakers. A study in contrasts: While Kasab was apologetic, Naved was cocky

Kasab, who was injured and caught by the Mumbai police, while giving the entire details of the operation was apologetic and spoke extensively with his interrogators about how the operation had been carried out. He spoke about how he’d worked as a labourer, why he’d signed up with the Laskhar-e-Taiba and how the operation had been carried out. At one point he burst into tears while talking about jihad. “What jihad, sahab…?” he asked his interrogator, with the police official asking him to stop crying. “I know you will beat me but I will still tell you the truth,” Kasab told the police official. In contrast, Naved speaking in his first interrogation after being caught was cocky. Claiming that he and fellow jihadi Momin were there to do ‘Allah ka kaam’, Naved spoke about how they had run out of food days after setting off from Pakistan. When asked what he planned to do next, the arrested gunman said," Pakda kyon? Nahi pakadte toh pataa chaljaata (Why did you catch us? If you hadn’t caught us you would have found out)" He also didn’t know where Srinagar was."Nahi pataa kya ilaaka hai, kahaan hai yeh" (I don’t know this area, where is it?)," he asked in response to a question about attacking Srinagar. But unlike Kasab, who in his detailed interrogation said that he was expected to die during the operation, Naved hasn’t indicated anything of the sort. Kasab was a labourer, little known about Naved presently In Kasab’s case, he was from a village in Faridkot. He told his interrogators that he had dropped out of school in class four and then went on to work as a labourer on building sites. “He comes from a very humble but noble, honest family. His father was a street vendor selling snacks on a cart. Kasab did not send any money home and his family is still as poor as they were before he left. He was probably trapped by some religious group,” Haji Mohammad Aslam, Kasab’s neighbour who owns a shop where his family lived, had  told Reuters. Another schoolmate remembers taking karate lessons with him. “He was very active, always jumping around. He loved watching films,” Aslam had said. But in his interrogation, Kasab admitted that a major motivating factor for him to join the terror group had been the promise of money being paid to his family. In contrast, little is known about Naved except for the fact that he hailed from a better background. Official sources told PTI that Naved was a resident of Ghulam Mustafabad in Faisalabad. The officials said that he has two brothers and one sister. Of his brothers, one is a lecturer while the other runs a hosiery business. How they were caught Kasab was caught as he and an accomplice were attempting to break through a police barricade in a stolen car. The car in which they were travelling halted and when Kasab stepped out of the car, gun in hand, Mumbai Police official Tukaram Ombale jumped at him. Kasab reportedly fired multiple times but because of Ombale, was unable to hit any of the other policemen. The other officials then quickly caught him and arrested him. In contrast, Naved was caught by the three persons he had taken hostage. After taking them hostage, Naved had reportedly told them to take him to a safe location so that he could escape the security forces and try find an opportunity to cross the border. “Keeping me at gun point, he asked me to take him to a place where nobody could see him. However, instead of following his order, we misled him,” Rakesh Kumar, one of the hostages, told channels. But when he started to eat, one of the three villagers grabbed him by the neck while another one took away his gun As his interrogation continues more is likely to be learnt about Naved, a suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba operative. However, what both seem to have in common is the training and the motivation to carry out the attacks, even necessary at the cost of their lives. As Firstpost columnist Rajeev Sharma has already pointed out , Naved’s arrest is unlikely to give India much when it comes to influencing the international community against Pakistan, and it could only have a limited effect on the two nations as well. But for security forces, his capture could prove to be invaluable. Like Kasab, Naved could offer some insights into how the various terror groups across the border work and what their plans might be.