Enough about Kasab, please

It isn't news that our news publications seem to be suffering from an escalating lack of imagination and increasingly warped perspective. But the continuing manic obsession with terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, for all the wrong reasons, is downright ridiculous. I have no quarrel with the media reporting on Kasab's trial relating to the terror attacks in Mumbai on November 26 last year. That is news and people would like to know how things are progressing. But all the rest is completely unnecessary.

Some front pages this morning have reports about the young Pakistani - the only terrorist taken alive after Mumbai's 60-hour nightmare in 2008 - pining for a rakhi! Apparently he felt left out after seeing cops, lawyers and prison guards sporting colourful rakhis (threads that sisters tie on the wrists of their brothers). He asked his lawyer if anyone would do him the honour. The lawyer shared this little tid-bit with the press, which promptly lapped it up. Who needs a PR agency when the Indian press is so willing to oblige?

There's more just from this morning. Apparently Kasab very helpfully offered to sketch the faces of two other terrorists, also wanted for the 2008 attack, whose pictures the Indian police do not have on file. And he handed over childish doodles to the expectant cops. What on earth did they expect?!! Disappointed cops and prison authorities have now dismissed the sketches as "completely useless" and decided not to hand them over to the judge trying Kasab. The report further enlightens us on how the Pakistani was given paper and pencil for the sketches and then watched "extra closely" to ensure he didn't hurt himself with the writing tool.

The Indian Express quotes an unnamed prison official as saying: "Although he is not a sketch artist, we were expecting him to make a serious effort to draw the two faces. However, when he gave us the sketches we did not know what to say. He had drawn doodles like a small child. The drawings do not resemble actual faces by any stretch of the imagination and are completely useless."

I ask again, what the hell did you expect?!! That this young, misguided killer is a closet Van Gogh?

These are just the latest in a series of such absurd reports. We've read before about Kasab getting bored in prison (well, d-uh!) and asking for books to read. According to reports he has been reading books on magic (probably hoping to spirit out of Arthur Road Jail) and the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi. We were also informed when he asked for permission to take a stroll outside his solitary confinement cell. And when he requested an Urdu newspaper, toothpaste and a bottle of perfume.

Now I've been in the print news business for quite a while, so I am aware that papers need what are called human-interest stories. But human-interest reports are meant to tug at a reader's heart, stirring compassion and empathy. Why on earth would you want to do that for a man who killed several innocent Indians in cold blood? And, even if you think it necessary for some strange reason, why on the front page?

On the night of November 26, 2008, a group of young men landed on Mumbai's shores after setting sail from Pakistan some days earlier. They had orders to randomly kill as many people as possible and were talked through the barbaric operation by their minders in Pakistan. The final toll of Mumbai's ordeal was 170. Kasab was one of those killers. Please let's remember that and not - even unwittingly - try to humanise this monster.