The Hindu : Front Page : NIA focus on Headley’s Bollywood links

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Thursday, Nov 19, 2009
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NIA focus on Headley’s Bollywood links

Special Correspondent

He is said to have established contacts during his stay in Mumbai

Efforts on to find out if Headley and Rana played a key role in helping plan 26/11
NIA investigators may question Kasab to ascertain if he knew the duo

NEW DELHI: As investigators try to reconstruct the sequence of events that took place during the stay of American terror plotter David Coleman Headley in India last year, the focus of the probe appears to have shifted to ascertaining and verifying the reported links Headley had with some Bollywood personalities.

Apart from phone and hotel records, sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), camping in Mumbai since Saturday last, are verifying the contacts Headley is said to have established during his stay in the city.

Sources in the government said the effort was to trace the persons he met last year, days before the 26/11 terror attacks.

The sources said that Rahul Bhatt, son of filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, was a witness and three others who had come in contact with Headley were also being asked about their meetings with the U.S. national.

“Some encounters of Headley may have been purely by chance or in a casual manner, while some others could have been planned. We have to collect and verify all such bits of information. It is a painstaking investigation and nothing can be said at this stage with certainty,” the sources said.

Though it is becoming clear that Headley and his Canadian accomplice Tahawwur Rana were part of a larger conspiracy and plot by the Lashkar-e-Taiba to target India, efforts were on to find out if the duo had indeed played a key role in helping plan and launch the 26/11 attacks by 10 Pakistani terrorists.

Ajmal Kasab is the lone surviving terrorist and he is facing trial in the case.

NIA investigators are likely to question Kasab to ascertain if he knew Headley and Rana, who were arrested last month by the FBI in Chicago on allegations of plotting terror attacks in Denmark and India.

After the Headley-Rana episode, India has tightened visa approval norms for Pakistan-born U.S. citizens by making it mandatory for such applications to be cleared by New Delhi.

The Home Ministry is also said to be contemplating a similar condition for American nationals born in China, Afghanistan and Iran.

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