"No information on Headley-Rana case from Pakistan"

Pakistan had not shared any information relating to the Headley-Rana investigation with India, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said here on Tuesday.

Pakistani-origin terror suspects David Headley and Tahawwur Rana were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Chicago in October. They were believed to be planning to target vital installations in India.

“No information was received from Pakistan on the Headley-Rana case. Pakistan has not shared any information with us so far,” Mr. Chidambaram told journalists. An FBI team would most probably visit India next week to share information about the probe carried out by the U.S. investigators so far.

Asked about the National Investigation Agency’s probe into the case, he said he was satisfied with the investigations. “A large number of investigators are out on the field probing every lead of that we have been able to get and the probe is progressing quite satisfactorily.”

Interlinking of offices

Presenting the Home Ministry’s report card for November, Mr. Chidambaram, who completed a year in office on Tuesday, said the government had decided to link all offices dealing with travel documents relating to foreigners to ensure sharing of information on a “real-time basis.” Under the proposal, the Foreigners’ Division in the Home Ministry, the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Offices and all missions of the External Affairs Ministry abroad would be interlinked. “This project will help in taking decisions on a real-time basis,” Mr. Chidambaram said.

The decision to revamp the Foreigners’ Division was prompted by the manner in which visa was given to Rana, a Pakistani-Canadian, by the Consulate-General in Chicago. His case was not referred for clearance to the Home Ministry.

The Consulate later claimed there was no need to refer cases where an individual was a Pakistani citizen but had become the citizen of another country and surrendered his Pakistani citizenship.

Border roads

Mr. Chidambaram said that on the India-China border, about 201 km of roads were in various stages of construction, and that 4.6 km of formation works were completed in November. Forest clearances were obtained for four roads, three in Uttarakhand and one in Arunachal Pradesh.

The government had decided that from the Civil Services Examination 2009 onwards, the annual batch-size of the Indian Police Service would be increased from 130 to 150.