Author: VR Jayaraj
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 16, 2009
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/216139/From-Kerala-to-Gujarat-Headley-ran-terror-empire.html
Enlarging the scope of investigation to trace the movements and designs of
David Headley, a US citizen arrested by the FBI on terror charges, the National
Investigation Agency (NIA) has formed several teams in Mumbai and other States.
The measure followed leads that David, his accomplice Tahawwur Hussain Rana
and his wife had visited Kochi ten days before the 26/11 terror attacks last
year. Investigations so far have proved that Headley and Rana had criss-crossed
India and stayed at Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Pune and Ahmedabad.
Probe into the visits of the two terror suspects
have also led sleuths to the disclosure that Rana's wife, Samraz Rana, had
visited India along with him. Samraz, a Canadian national born in Bahawalpur
of Pakistan, had accompanied Rana to Kochi on November 16, 2008, sources said.
While these investigations were on, Home Secretary
GK Pillai said in Delhi on Sunday that the Government had not given a clean
chit to anyone related to David Headley case. He also said the ongoing probe
spread across several States would take four to six weeks to unearth the truth.
Reports from Mumbai said the NIA formed several
teams here as well as in other States and started questioning several people
to trace the footsteps of Headley and Rana as new leads suggested that they
had visited Kerala.
NIA officials were looking for an estate agent
in Khar, a western suburb of Mumbai and Tardeo in central Mumbai, who could
have helped Headley in finding a house in Breach Candy in South Mumbai, official
sources said.
Sleuths were now in the process of procuring
CCTV footage and other records from various hotels in Mumbai frequented by
Headley and Rana during their stay, officials said.
In a related development, sleuths of Central
security agencies found that Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pakistan origin,
went to Kochi in Kerala.
Home Secretary GK Pillai, while making it
clear that no one has been given clean chit in the Headley case so far, said
in New Delhi that Rana had visited Kochi last year 10 days before the terror
attacks in Mumbai.
Kerala Police chief Jacob Punnoose said, "A
man named Tahawwur Hussain Rana had stayed in a hotel in Kochi on November
16 (last year)." The hotel records in Kerala showed that Rana checked
in at a five-star hotel in Kochi on November 16 and left for Mumbai the next
day. Sleuths were investigating whether the purpose of Rana's visit was for
recruiting youth for militant activities.
Reports from Kochi said that intelligence
officials on Sunday confirmed Rana had visited Kochi in November 2008 even
as they intensified the efforts to find out the real purpose of the visit
and to track down the people who had met or contacted him during the stay
here. Investigators also got hold of two mobile phone numbers Rana had used
while in Kochi.
Rana had stayed at Hotel Taj Residency (now
Gateway Hotel) at Marine Drive, Kochi on November 16 and 17, 2008, just ten
days before the 26/11 Mumbai terror strike, along with Samraz Aktar Rana,
said to be his wife.
He had visited Kochi as Dr Tahawwur Rana,
a 'world famous' Canadian emigration expert, and had published an advertisement
in an English newspaper on November 17, saying he would be giving tips for
those who wanted to migrate to the US and Canada.
However, intelligence officials said it was
premature to conclude that the actual intention behind Rana's Kochi visit
was recruitment of manpower for Canada and the US. One thinking among the
sleuths is that Rana had placed the advertisement on November 17, the very
day he left Kochi, to throw any tailing sleuths off the track.
The primary assumption of the sleuths of the
Intelligence Bureau and the Kerala Police corroborates with the findings of
the NIA and the FBI that Rana could have been using the emigration consultancy
business as a front for terror activities. Rana and his wife, Canadian citizens
with Pakistani origin, had been given visas to India for business purposes.
Officials have learned that around 20 persons
had met or contacted Rana while he was in Kochi before leaving for Mumbai
through Bangalore from the international airport at nearby Nedumbassery.
They hoped to get all the details of these
people by late Sunday or Monday. They have also got the copies of the passports
of Rana and his wife. Officials confirmed that the photo in the passport was
indeed that of terror man Rana, arrested in Chicago.
Kerala Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan
said a Canadian citizen named Tahawwur Rana had visited Kochi in November,
2008 but added it was yet to be confirmed whether he was really terror man
Rana held by the FBI in Chicago. However, sleuths probing the case did not
seem to harbour any doubts about the identity.
As per the advertisement Rana had placed in
the newspaper on November 17, 2008, he was meeting visa aspirants for US and
Canada from November 14 to 20 at Delhi, Kochi, Ahmedabad and Mumbai. According
to the adversitement, he was to have met aspirants in Delhi on November 14
and 15. He was to give consultancy to aspirants in Ahmedabad on November 18
and 19 and in Mumbai on the very next day.
The advertisement had also cited two phone
numbers, one of Mumbai and the other an overseas number. There were also two
e-mail IDs in the ad. The dates of consultancy in Kochi were November 16 and
17. It is now known that he had met some people on these days. There are unconfirmed
reports that some of those who had contacted Rana in Kochi were from Aluva
off Kochi, a place that has already found a prominent spot in the terror map
of Kerala, and Kottayam.
But the question bothering the investigators
was why he had published the advertisement in the morning paper on November
17 when he had decided to leave Kochi on that afternoon. There were two possible
explanations for this, officials said. One was that he must have been giving
the hotel authorities a reason for the several visitors he had been meeting.
The other was that he could have been trying to throw any intelligence tail
off his actual track of terror.
