As a team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrived here on Monday, the government said the U.S. has “promised” total support in probing involvement of terror suspects David Headley and Tahawwur Rana, presently in U.S. custody, in plotting crimes in India.
“Investigations are on in the matter. The FBI team is here and we have been assured all cooperation from the U.S. investigating agencies. So we are awaiting the first report of the investigation,” External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna told reporters on the sidelines of the second India-Africa Hydrocarbon Conference.
Sources in the government said the team had held discussions with their Indian counterparts in Mumbai and were likely to share information on the alleged links of Headley and Rana with 26/11 terror attacks and several persons in India.
The team also held talks with National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials and other agencies, the sources said. It is learnt that the FBI officials gave some information about Rana and Headley and also assured the Indian probe agencies that they would share more as the interrogation of the two progressed.
Indian intelligence agencies believe that Headley was the “missing link” in the Mumbai attacks as he had reportedly supplied photographs, maps and other details to the Lashkar terrorists who travelled clandestinely to Mumbai from Karachi.
On October 3 the FBI arrested Headley, born in Pakistan but settled in the U.S. for his alleged links with an international terror network. Rana, a Canadian citizen also of Pakistani origin and believed to be Headley’s accomplice, was arrested on October 18. He was operating an immigration centre in Chicago.
Investigations have indicated that they were working on behalf of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terror outfit and were planning attacks in India.
Last month when CIA chief Leon Panetta met National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan here, he had pointed to the links of Headley and Rana, the two terror plotters, with some elements in Pakistan’s ISI set-up.
