Mumbai:
Ujjwal Nikam has mastered the art of courtroom exits. Emerging from the court at Arthur Road jail, where, for 11 months, he argued India's biggest terror case, Nikam gives the waiting cameras the thumbs up. Then, with a flourish, he takes off his dark glasses. "The media cannot see my eyes," he says, every bit the star of the show.
He has just won convictions for most of the 86 charges that Ajmal Kasab was slapped with, including waging war against India.
Nikam has a flair for the dramatic. While asking for the death sentence for Kasab, he said, "This is an animal, a killing machine."
Nikam has a Facebook page and it is loaded with messages of praise from fans.
He may seem comfortable with all the attention but the 57-year-old has spent most of his life in far quieter conditions.
The son of a lawyer, he belongs to Jalgaon in North Maharashtra. He still lives there with his family, choosing to commute to Mumbai for the cases that stripped him of his anonymity.
His big break came in 1993 when he was appointed Public Prosecutor for the Mumbai serial blasts case.
Since then, Nikam has been the government's lawyer on half a dozen high-profile cases. Among them, the shooting of music label T-Series baron Gulshan Kumar and the murder of BJP leader
Pramod Mahajan by his own brother.
Nikam's record establishes 600 life sentences and more than 30 convictions that resulted in capital punishment. He has been accused repeatedly of playing to the gallery. For now, though, he is a hero of sorts to many families who believe the conviction of Kasab will edge them a little closer to the closure they long for.