Pakistani villagers confirm it's the home of Mumbai killer
FARIDKOT, near Depalpur, Pakistan — The lone gunman captured alive by Indian police during last week's terrorist attack on Mumbai comes from a dirt-poor village in Pakistan's southern Punjab region where a banned Islamist group has been actively recruiting young men for "jihad," according to residents of the village and official records seen by McClatchy Newspapers.
A McClatchy reporter visited the village three times in four days and obtained official electoral records, which showed that Ajmal's parents, as named by the Indian authorities, indeed reside in the village.
But everything in the village fit the details leaked from the Indian police interrogation of Ajmal. Indian police identified the father as Mohammad Ameer, who earns a meager living selling home-made snacks from a mobile cart, and his wife as Noor. At the tiny family house, located on a narrow street deep inside Faridkot, the McClatlchy reporter on a second visit Friday noted a mobile food cart lying in the courtyard.
A villager, who asked not to be named for his own safety, told McClatchy: "These people are telling you lies. We know that boy (caught in Mumbai) is from Faridkot. We knew from the first night (of the attack)."
Shown a picture of Ajmal, he confirmed it was the young man from the village.
"They brainwash our youth about jihad, there are people who do it in this village. They tell them they'll get a ticket to heaven. It is so wrong," the villager added.