Dropping Headley's name indicates a pattern

There appears to be a pattern in the manner that the accused in the 26/11 case are making statements before the court. First Sabahuddin claimed that David Headley had interrogated him along with the FBI team that visited India post 26/11 and today it was the turn of prime accused, Ajmal Kasab to issue a similar statement.

A week back Sabahuddin had made a similar statement in the special court claiming that one of the officers who had come down to interrogate him along with the FBI was David Headley. He had told the court he had seen a sketch of Headley in the newspaper which he gets in prison and it was then that it occurred to him that he was one of the persons who interrogated him in a Mumbai prison. Based on the submission made before the court, he was directed to file an application through his lawyer, Ejaz Naqvi before the Magistrate to seek any sort of orders in this regard.

Today before the special court, Kasab too towed the same line. He too claimed that he was interrogated by FBI agent Headley. Sources in the intelligence bureau told rediff.com that it is highly unlikely that the FBI would have brought down Headley to interrogate the Mumbai accused. The FBI would have been taking too much of a risk in doing so. We have been verifying this information and nothing concrete has emerged as yet on this.

As far as both the accused are concerned, it appears that it is only a tactic to delay the proceedings. If the accused continue to pursue the matter before the court, they will have to move an application before the Magistrate and seek to direct the investigating agency to probe into this matter.

IB sources say that it is highly unlikely that Headley would have come down and interrogated the two accused. First and foremost there is only a sketch of Headley that is available and the accused may have mistaken him for someone else. Sources however say that with the allegation of Headley being termed as a FBI agent and now these statements, the US would be under pressure to hand over Headley to India so that a lot of confusion is put to rest.

Headley was an informer or approver for the FBI who had been sent to the AF-Pak region to pass on information regarding the drug trade in that region. However he cozied up to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and became their operative. The FBI was not in the loop about his operations for a long time. It was only in early 2008 that they started to keep a tab on him and based on this they had also warned India about an attack on Mumbai in September 2008, the same month, the FBI lost track of this man. The Intelligence Bureau says that the fact that Headley was an approver is a confirmed fact, but there is some discrepancy regarding his date of arrest as we believe that he was picked up a couple of months after the 26/11 attack at Mumbai.