Ajmal Kasab hanged

Just five days before the fourth anniversary of the brutal terror attacks, Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving Pakistani terrorist of the Nov 26-29 2008 terror siege, was hanged at Pune’s Yerwada Jail on Wednesday morning.

Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving terrorist from the 26/11 terror attack, was hanged to death at the Yerawada Jail in Pune this morning, Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil today said.

Kasab was hanged at 7.30 am, he said here.

25-year-old Kasab had been lodged in the Arthur Jail Road here ever since he was arrested immediately after the attack in 2008. He was convicted and given capital punishment by the trial court on May 6, 2010 which was upheld by the Bombay High Court on February 21, 2011.

The Supreme Court subsequently upheld the sentence on August 29 this year.

“Due process of law has been followed,” Mr. Patil said adding that hanging came after the President of India rejected his mercy petition on November 8.

“This is a true homage to the innocent victims, including policemen and security personnel, who laid down their lives,” he said.

166 persons had died in the attack. Police had succeeded in capturing Kasab alive after killing the remaining nine terrorists.

“Attack on Mumbai was an attack on the entire country,” Mr. Patil said.

Letter faxed to Pakistan

While stating that Pakistan was informed about the execution of Ajmal Kasab, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said, with this (execution) the judicial procedure of 26/11 case has been completed.

"Indian mission in Islamabad informed the Pakistan government about Kasab’s hanging through letter. Since Pakistan refused to take the letter, same was sent through fax", Mr. Shinde said.

Alcohol does more harm to women than men

Women who drink alcohol are at an increased risk of mortality than men, a new study has found.

German researchers found that mortality rates of alcohol-dependent women are 460 per cent higher than the non-drinking general population while male alcoholics have a 190 per cent higher death rate than the general population.

"Clinical data has revealed a higher proportion of individuals who have died than among the general population of the same age," said Ulrich John, professor of epidemiology and social medicine at the University of Greifswald.

John and colleagues gathered a random sample of 4,070 respondents aged between 18 and 64 years. Of them, 153 were identified as alcohol dependent (AD). Of these, 149 (119 males, 30 females) were followed for 14 years.

"Gender-specific data is rare, even among clinical samples. Furthermore, these studies have two main limitations," adds John, according to the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

"First, we know that only a minority of AD individuals receive treatment. We lack knowledge about how this selection occurs. Second, we have no evidence about the potential effects of specialised alcoholism treatment on mortality among people who had been diagnosed AD," said John, according to a University Medicine statement.

"We would like to know whether treatment might enhance survival time. For ethical reasons, no controlled trials are possible. Thus, longitudinal descriptive data as in this study are helpful," says John, study co-author.

"Our data are also of international interest because researchers used the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), which is an internationally and widely accepted instrument," he said.