Mumbai/New Delhi: India will tell Pakistan to act swiftly against the Mumbai terror attack accused, especially against Pakistani “state actors” and JuD chief and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed after David Coleman Headley spilled the beans on the direct role of Pakistan’s ISI and other state actors in the carnage.
Headley’s video deposition in a Mumbai court Monday is the first case of deposition via video link from overseas.
Minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju said the testimony by Headley will end the ambiguity on the role of Pakistani “state and non-state actors” in the Mumbai attack and “help” India take the case to a logical conclusion. Sources said if need be a fresh dossier may be sent to update the evidence shared with Pakistan.
Earlier, in his deposition, Headley said, “However, foreigners are not allowed in Fata (Federally Administered Tribal Area) in Pakistan, and they thought I was a foreigner and arrested me. At that time, Maj. Sajid Mir came to interrogate him because as an ISI officer it was his duty to interrogate people arrested in that area.”
Headley added he was then carrying literature on India, that made the authorities arrest him. But he also had with him a Pakistani identity card, and when it was proved he was a Pakistani they let him go.
Headley then testified that Maj. Mir thought he (Headley) could be useful for them, so he introduced him to ISI’s Maj. Iqbal, and it was at their instance that he changed his name and got issued a new passport and a business visa for India.
“Maj. Iqbal was happy to see it (business visa for India) and approved it,” added Headley.
With this visa, he came to Mumbai seven times before the 26/11 attacks. He also visited Delhi once.
After getting the visa Maj. Mir asked him to set up an office in Mumbai so he could visit the city easily, and his first assignment in Mumbai was to prepare a general video of the city.
“I was intending to go to Kashmir to fight against Indian troops but I didn’t go as I was told I was too old to go to Kashmir,” Headley said in his statement as an approver in the court of special judge G.A. Sanap on Monday.
He told the court: “Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi (of LeT) told me I am not fit to go to Kashmir, and that they would use me for some other purpose.”
Headley also testified on how the ISI and LeT trained him to gather Intelligence and do a recee of Mumbai.
headley info1
