Taliban to India: Return Gunman's Body or Face 'Revenge'

The Taliban threatened revenge today unless India returns the body of a Pakistani man executed for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. A Pakistani Taliban spokesman demanded that Mohammed Ajmal Kasab's body be given back to his family or handed over to the Taliban. "If his body is not given to us or his family, we will, God willing, carry on his mission," the spokesman said. "We will take revenge for his murder."

India secretly hanged Mohammed Ajmal Kasab yesterday and buried his body at the jail in the city of Pune, where he was executed. India's external affairs minister said yesterday that the government would consider any request from the Pakistani government or Kasab's family to hand over his body, but no such request had been received. Kasab was the lone surviving gunman from the three-day attack in Mumbai, India's financial capital, which targeted two luxury hotels, a Jewish center, a tourist restaurant, and a crowded train station. (More Mumbai stories.)