New York: Convicted LeT terrorist David Coleman Headley liked Indian food and Indian people, but had a hatred for India as a nation.
"I like everything about India ...I like the food, the
people. But I don`t like India," Headley told an Indian
counter-terror official familiar with his questioning by
Indian investigators in Chicago last year.
Headley, who spent a long stint in India reconnoitring
hit sites for the LeT before they carried out the bloody
Mumbai massacre, talked about his "conflicted relationship"
with India during his de-briefing with Indian investigators.
According to a new report by investigative journalist
Sebastian Rotella of ProPublica, Headley watched the coverage
of the Mumbai attacks on TV with his Moroccan wife Faiza
Outalha.
As 10 LeT terrorists carried out their deadly assault
across Mumbai on November 26 three years ago, his Pakistani
wife congratulated him on the terror attacks calling it his
"graduation ceremony" and a "movie" that she watched the whole
day on TV.
Headley was at his home in Lahore when the LeT terrorists
gunned down 166 people, including six Americans at luxury
hotels, a railway station and a Jewish community centre in
Mumbai, sites that he had recced and provided detailed
information about to his Pakistani handlers.
He received a text message from Sajid Mir, one of the LeT
masterminds behind the Mumbai attacks, on that black November
day asking him to "turn on your television".
According to a new report by investigative journalist
Sebastian Rotella of ProPublica, Headley watched the coverage
of the Mumbai attacks on TV with his Moroccan wife Faiza
Outalha.
He then got a "celebratory email" on November 28 from his
Pakistani wife Shazia, who said "Congrats on your graduation...
Graduation ceremony is really great. Watched the movie the
whole day."
Shazia, who lives with her children in Chicago, knew
about his Mumbai reconnaissance and praised him for the
attacks using coded language.
According to the report, Headley steadfastly protected
Shazia as he was being investigated by authorities after he
was arrested and charged in Chicago in 2009.
"His condition when he spoke to us was that he accepted
no questions about Shazia," the ProPublica report quoted an
Indian counter-terror official familiar with the interrogation
of Headley as saying.
"He said: `She is the only one who has given me four
children. Despite my philandering, she has been faithful. She
has been loyal to me. She is a devoted Muslim. I admire her`."
PTI
