For Jeddah-based Indian national Sultan Mazharuddin, there is no doubt whatsoever. “Qasab should be hanged and will be hanged. If he were in Saudi Arabia, he would have been executed in public in downtown Balad district for what he and his group of Pakistanis have done,” he said.

K.N. Wasif, the Riyadh-based columnist of a popular Urdu daily in India, shared Mazharuddin’s sentiments and felt Qasab deserved the highest form of punishment. “He got exactly that,” he said. “No punishment can be greater than the march to the gallows.”

He felt “such an exemplary punishment” would serve as a deterrent to all terrorists. “Terrorism is forbidden in Islam,” he added.

However, Wasif felt it would be wrong not to investigate thoroughly all the lapses that led to the massacre in Mumbai in 2008. “How could those eight or 10 guys hold India to ransom for three days? How could they land in Mumbai? How was the entire operation planned and executed?” he said.

“Where did our intelligence agencies fail? These are the questions that beg convincing answers. To blame it all on one person will certainly not go down well with the Indian civil society.”

Jeddah-based Pakistani national Nadeem Siddiqui described the Indian court verdict as farce.

“Who are they trying to fool? This is a kangaroo court. How can these guys plan such a massive operation without any local help? For India, Pakistan is a convenient bogey. They have always been blaming us for everything that has happened in their backyard,” he said.

“When there was a bomb blast in a Samjhauta Express train, we Pakistanis were blamed. It later turned out that Hindu extremists from within the Indian Army were responsible for that carnage. And the idea was to derail the Pakistan-India peace process that was underway at that time.”

He accused the Indian media and courts of not being known for their honesty, claiming they were more interested in being jingoistic and attacking Pakistan at every opportunity.

Syed Ehsanul Haque, a well-known Pakistani engineer in Jeddah, said he was not at all impressed by the judgment.

“Where is the evidence? Are we to believe that all this happened without any local help?” he said.

“The verdict has been passed in isolation. We Pakistanis need to know why was Hemant Karkare, the Indian police chief who had uncovered a Hindu plot to commit acts of terror, killed? There were so many stories within the Indian press that indicated foul play in his killing. This court has said nothing about it. To me that is very strange.”

He added that Qasab was just a scapegoat and his reaction to the death sentence was one of massive skepticism. He also claimed all Pakistanis would feel the same way.