Could identify Ansari from his Beed accent: witness in court

The witness, a relative of Ansari, heard the conversation and told the court that the voice on one side of the phone line — which was giving instructions — was that of Ansari.

“I know him since childhood and I have spoken to him on many occasions,” the witness told the court when asked about how he could confirm that the voice was that of Ansari. He added that while he could not understand certain words used by the four men, he could identify words used by the person he identified as Ansari.

In the conversation played before court, the voice alleged to be that of Ansari is heard saying “yuvak” before changing it to “naujawan”, after one of the four men in Chabad House did not understand it. The witness also identified another word “tola” used in the conversation, which he said was usually used in the local dialect in Beed district.

“After hearing the conversation, I gathered that his (Ansari’s) pronunciation of words was similar to that of the people in Beed district. The other four men had a different pronunciation,” he told the court.

The witness also told the court during his cross-examination that he had studied in an Urdu medium school where Marathi was compulsorily taught and that Ansari was his senior in the school.

The defence asked the witness if he had heard the sound of bomb explosions or firing or crying in the background of the audio clip. He stated that while there was no background sound, he had heard one of the four men say that he had just hurled a hand grenade, two minutes before the conversation between Ansari and the four men began.

Six persons were killed in Chabad House, including Rabbi Gavriel Holztberg and his wife Rivka, in the attacks. According to the prosecution, Ansari was present in a control room in Pakistan, from where he had instructed the attackers in Mumbai. The witness will continue to be cross-examined on Friday.