On a special KBC episode built around the 26/11 trial, prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said Ajmal Kasab once claimed he'd come to Mumbai hoping to meet Bachchan, and the actor didn't hold back his response.
It's not every day a Kaun Banega Crorepati episode turns into a courtroom flashback, but that's what happened on the special hour built around Ujjwal Nikam's account of the 26/11 trial.
The public prosecutor, appearing alongside Rajkummar Rao and Wamiqa Gabbi, was walking Amitabh Bachchan through the years-long case against Ajmal Kasab when he dropped a detail that clearly caught the host off guard. According to Nikam, Kasab had at one point claimed he'd travelled to Mumbai hoping to meet Bachchan. "Aapko tajjub hoga jo aage usne kaha tha ki main toh Amitabh ji ko dekhne ke liye aaya tha. Ye sach mein hua hai," Nikam said on the show.
Bachchan's response was immediate, and unsparing. "Nahi nahi, sir agar woh aaya hoga toh woh hamare ghar se jaane wala nahi tha. Wahi hum goli maar dete use," he shot back, only half joking. The line has already started doing the rounds on social media, clipped and shared with the kind of glee reserved for moments when the host of a family quiz show says something nobody expected.
The exchange came up because Bachchan had asked Nikam, quite reasonably, why it took close to four years to get Kasab executed after his conviction. Nikam's answer went back to the basics of criminal procedure, that an accused is presumed innocent until the law says otherwise and gets the right to mount a defence, however thin that defence might look in hindsight. He said Kasab, during the trial, shifted his story more than once. First he denied being arrested in connection with 26/11 at all, claiming instead he'd been picked up on November 6 at Juhu Chowpatty. Later, per Nikam, he said he was a minor and that RAW, not the Mumbai police, had taken him into custody. He is also said to have pointed at an associate named Smail as the actual shooter.
Nikam claimed the prosecution had CCTV footage that undercut that last defence entirely, showing Kasab laughing as a young girl was shot. He also referenced material linked to Al-Qaeda that was presented in court, and noted that while Kasab had two lawyers arguing his case, Nikam was the sole counsel for the prosecution representing the government through the entire trial.
None of this is new information for anyone who followed the 26/11 case as it played out in real time, but hearing it recounted on a mainstream entertainment show, with Bachchan reacting in real time, gives it a different kind of reach. The episode is part of a run Sony has been building around Nikam's retelling of the prosecution's side, and this particular clip looks set to be the one people keep circulating.
Whether Sony pulls more of Nikam's account into future KBC 18 episodes, or whether this stays a one-off special, isn't clear yet.
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