India files charges against Mumbai attack gunman

Investigators charged the lone surviving gunman from the Mumbai attacks with 12 crimes yesterday including murder and waging war against India.

Pakistani Mohammed Ajmal Kasab has been held by the police since he was captured in the early hours of the attacks, but had not been formally charged. Nine other attackers were killed during the three-day siege, which left 164 people dead and targeted luxury hotels, a Jewish center and other sites across the city. The formal filing of charges paves the way for Kasab's trial to begin.

The charges a several-thousand page document also included Kasab's confession, detailed accounts from 150 witnesses and closed circuit television footage that shows him and his accomplice walking into Mumbai's crowded Chhatrapati Shivaji train station and spraying it with bullets, Mumbai police's main investigator Rakesh Maria had said earlier.

Indian law requires that charges be filed against a suspect within 90 days of arrest. Kasab was formally arrested November 28.

Kasab has been given a copy of the police charge sheet, special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said yesterday.

If convicted on the two most critical charges murder and waging war against India the 21-year-old Kasab will likely face the death penalty.

India has blamed the attack on Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist militant group widely believed created by Pakistani intelligence agencies in the 1980s to fight India rule in the divided Kashmir region.

India has also said that all 10 attackers were from Pakistan.

Earlier this month, Pakistani officials acknowledged that the Mumbai attacks were partly plotted on its soil and announced criminal proceedings against eight suspects.

There are no details yet about when Kasab's trial is likely to begin.

Meanwhile, India had earlier said that they will respond to Pakistan's questions on dossier after filing of chargesheet in Mumbai attack case.

"After the chargesheet is filed, we will reply," Home Minister Chidambaram told reporters outside Parliament on being asked when India would reply to the set of 30 questions posed by Pakistan on the Indian dossier.