NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA), satisfied with the 35-year sentence handed out to LeT operative David Coleman Headley as it virtually rules out his coming out of the prison alive, will now step up efforts to gain access to his accomplice Tahawwur Hussain Rana to probe the case relating to the LeT's plot to target various Indian cities, including the national capital.
Rana, handed a 14-year jail term by the US court on January 17 for aiding a terror plot against a Danish newspaper office, was earlier acquitted on counts relating to abetting and providing material support for the Mumbai carnage. There is a realization here that the US may not grant India access to Rana for probing his role in the 26/11 attacks.
The NIA will rely on its investigations into activities of Headley during his several trips to India both before and after the Mumbai attacks. The Pakistani-American terror operative, whose videography of the 26/11 targets helped LeT plan and coordinate the terror assault, had in 2009 went around Chabad Houses across five cities, the National Defence College in New Delhi and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mantralaya and Air India building in Mumbai, scouting them for future terror attacks.
Rana, a Canadian-American, who ran an immigration business from Chicago, is alleged to have provided him funds for these reconnaissance trips. Though NIA has sought information from the US regarding Headley's bank accounts linked to the credit card used by him during his stay in India, the Americans are yet to share the same. The NIA believes Headley's bank statements may help probe whether Rana had been transferring money to the American LeT operative's account to take care of his credit card bills.
Incidentally, it was Rana, a Pakistani Army deserter, who had facilitated Headley's Indian visa by arranging forged documents containing false information relating to Headley's father's name and marital status, and offered him cover for his reconnaissance missions by opening a "dummy" office for his immigration business in Mumbai.
Rana is also under lens for having visited India just ahead of the 26/11 attacks. He stayed at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai for four days with his wife, and left India for the UAE six days before 10 LeT terrorists landed in Mumbai. During this stay, he also carried out "interviews" of Canadian visa-seekers across cities like Agra, Ahmedabad and Kochi, who he had invited through a newspaper advertisement. However, the Indian agencies suspect that the "interviews" may have been a cover for possible recruitment of young men for terror activities.
NIA sleuths investigating the larger conspiracy of LeT to organize terrorist attacks at places of iconic importance in India, hope to get more information regarding the trips by Headley and Rana, by questioning Rana. Given the bleak hope of laying hands on Headley and the condition agreed to by Indian investigators of not using Headley's disclosures against him, NIA is now counting on a statement by Rana to take forward its trial in the case that it had registered in 2009.
Now, NIA aiming to secure access to Rana
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Now, NIA aiming to secure access to Rana
