Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Days after an Indian investigative team returned from the United States after questioning Pakistani American Lashkar-e-Toiba operative David Headley, the details of the interrogation are tumbling out.
A leading national daily on Sunday quoted government sources as saying that Headley, during his interrogation, told the four-member team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that different agents of the LeT have identified, listed, surveyed and photographed around 100 targets in India.
Headley, who said he was among those agents, was not aware of the identities and nationalities of other agents as his Pakistani “handlers” were careful not to reveal the details.
The LeT operative is reported to have further revealed that he had done videography and photography of some 30 of these targets in several Indian cities, including the 26/11 targets for which he had conducted a detailed survey. Headley, who has confessed to his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack, said he had visited India nine times between 2006-09.
The NIA team had interrogated Headley over seven days in what the US described as unrestricted "direct access".
"As part of the cooperation and partnership between the United States and India in the fight against international terrorism, Indian law enforcement officials were provided direct access to interview" Headley lodged in a Chicago jail, the US Justice Department said.
"Headley and his counsel agreed to the meetings and Headley answered the Indian investigators' questions over the course of seven days of interviews. There were no restrictions on the questions posed by Indian investigators."
Headley, who had changed his given name of Daood Gilani in 2006 to scout targets in Mumbai, had pleaded guilty on March 18 in a Chicago court to 12 federal terrorism charges, admitting that he participated in planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, as well as later planning to attack a Danish newspaper.
First Published: Sunday, June 20, 2010, 11:57