New Delhi: In fresh leads linking them with the November 26 attacks, American terror suspect David Headley and his Pakistani-Canadian associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana were being handled by same people who had given orders to Ajmal Kasab and other terrorists killed during 26/11.
With National Investigation Agency (NIA) widening its ambit of probe, more information surfaced about the activities of Headley who was found to have visited the Osho Ashram in Pune and also used two cyber cafes in Delhi's Paharganj locality where he had also stayed.
The city police have intensified checking at cyber cafes in Paharganj. Police described the searches as "routine" and not specifically for investigations into Headley case.
"Evidence is slowly getting established that Headley and Rana were part of the larger conspiracy behind the Mumbai attack. They were in touch with same people who were giving directions to (Ajmal Amir) Kasab (the lone surviving terrorist captured during the attack in Mumbai) and other terrorists," a senior Home Ministry official said.
There is definite information that Headley and Rana had stayed in Pakistan during last year's Mumbai attack and left that country in the first week of December 2008, the official said.
Indian investigators have asked US investigation agency FBI - which arrested Headley and Rana for plotting a terror attack in the US and India - for voice samples of Headley and Rana so that they can be compared with the samples available in India.
Who Were Headley's Contacts?
Following leads, investigators are questioning a lot of local contacts in all the places where Headley and Rana had stayed between 2006 and 2009. "However, there is no one person who stands out prominently amongst the people the two had contacted," the Home Ministry official said.
Besides, a large number of people - more than 100 - had contacted Rana after he issued advertisements in newspapers offering immigration services. "We don't know how many had availed of the facility and how many of them had gone abroad. We are verifying all such details," the official said.
During their stay in India, Headley and Rana mostly had used international credit cards for their financial dealings besides receiving money from abroad through Western Union Money Transfer.
On reports of an official of Pakistan Consulate in Mumbai handing over a satellite telephone to Headley, the official said there was no proof of that.
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On whether filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt's son Rahul, the official said he was not a terror suspect but efforts were on to ascertain if he had unwittingly helped Headley and also dismissed reports that Rahul had introduced three Bollywood actresses to the terror suspect.
The Pune Visit
Headley had stayed at the Osho Ashram in Pune twice during his visits to the city in 2008-09 but did not register himself as a foreign national with the police.
Specifying the dates of Headley's visit -- June 24, 2008 and March 16, 2009 -- Joint Commissioner Rajendra Sonavane said police got the information about his stay at the ashram from commune officials last night while scrutinising a report submitted by them on foreign national visitors.
Sonavane said police would be inquiring as to why Headley failed to register himself with the authorities as a foreign national as per the requirement under the law.
Pak diplomat's Headley 'link'
Investigators probing David Coleman Headley, the Pakistan-born US national arrested by the FBI for allegedly plotting terror attacks in India and Denmark, suspected a diplomat at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi had links with him.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) suspects the diplomat gave a phone to Headley, who used it to make calls to Pakistan while visiting Pakistan. NIA has found Headley lived at an apartment in Breach Candy in Mumbai for less than a year and visited Pune in 2008 and 2009.
Headley lived at Apartment 56 on the fifth floor of A Block of Shyam Nivas building as a paying guest with a Sindhi couple in south Mumbai till April 2008. The building is just five-minute walk away from US consulate. The revelation comes amidst the investigating agencies' efforts to retrace the steps of Headley and his associate Tahawwur Rana across India.
Headley had told the elderly couple that he was running an immigration agency in the city.
Headley’s passport shows he visited New Delhi, Mumbai, Kochi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Agra between 2006-2009--trips investigators suspect were recces for terrorist attack conspiracies.
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