MUMBAI: Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasab, one of the gunmen allegedly involved in the November Mumbai attacks, retracted his confession yesterday saying it was given after police tortured him. He asked the judge to dismiss the confession as his trial opened yesterday in the court of M.I. Tahilyani at the high security Arthur Road Prison.

The trial began with special public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam reading aloud the confession, which claimed that Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of the attack, had trained Qasab and his nine accomplices in urban guerrilla warfare in Pakistan.

The confession went on to claim that Lakhvi had instilled in the minds of the murderers that in order to liberate Jammu and Kashmir from India it was necessary to break the backbone of India by attacking its commercial center, Mumbai. Qasab and his associates were also allegedly told to target foreigners, especially American and Israeli citizens in the Nov. 26 attacks.

“Therefore we selected Leopold Café, Nariman House, Taj and Oberoi hotels in South Mumbai,” the confession reads.

The attacks, which ended with the death of Qasab’s accomplices on Nov. 29, left 166 people dead.

Police say Qasab, who sat barefoot in the dock dressed in a full-sleeve T-shirt and navy blue track pants, was one of the gunmen who arrived in Mumbai by sea from Pakistan to carry out the attacks.

The men had waged a war against India, Nikam told the court. “There is prima facie evidence that it was a criminal conspiracy, a clear case of war against the country aimed at capturing Kashmir,” the prosecutor said, and added that it was a well-rehearsed and well-thought out plan backed by Pakistani intelligence agencies.

Pakistan’s government has repeatedly denied any official involvement in the assault.

The court will pass an order on the validity of the confession today, Judge Tahilyani said. He said the court would examine witnesses to the confession to determine if it had been forced.

Earlier, Qasab’s lawyer Abbas Kazmi told the court that when the attacks took place Qasab was 17 years old and hence his trial should be conducted in a juvenile court.

“I would request the court to transfer the case to a competent juvenile court,” Kazmi urged the judge.

Nikam objected to the defense claim and said that on three occasions Qasab gave his date of birth as Sept. 13, 1987: in his original charge sheet, in his confession and in his jail registration.

The judge dismissed the request for a trial in a juvenile court, saying the defendant seemed to be in his early twenties on physical appearance.