America acted in bad faith, Tahawwur Rana only a small player: former Home Secretary | Faraz Ahmad

The Modi government and its kept media have gone to town blowing their trumpet over getting home on Thursday April 10 night Tahawwur Husain Rana, one of the co-conspirators in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.

Prime Minister Modi who believes he can turn any political crisis facing his government into a profitable capital has given such a play to the United States of America (USA) of President Donald Trump sending over to India a co-conspirator of 26/11 attack with a big tamasha- two senior officers of National Investigative Agency (NIA) flying him down in a special plane and landing at the dead of night.

But former Union Home Secretary at the time of the Mumbai attack by Pakistani terrorists on 26 November, 2008, G.K. Pillai told The Hindu that Rana had a “small role” to play in the attack in which killed as many as 164 persons, including the then chief of the Anti-Terror Squad, Deputy Commissioner of Police Hemant Karkare, a target of Sanghi calumny for holding Hindutva activists responsible for the Malegaon and other terror attacks during the UPA government was and gunned down along with his team mates Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Ashok Kamte, Inspector Vijay Salaskar and other police personnel, rushing in an open jeep without any backup police force to the aid of police personnel at Cama Hospital when they were ambushed by Ajmal Kasab and his fellow Pakistani terrorist and died there.

Mr Pillai said the US acted in “bad faith” and despite knowing about the terror plan in advance they let the main conspirator David Coleman Headley to continue with his anti-India activities. Even post 26/22 attack, Headley came to Mumbai. “We could have arrested him in Mumbai if we had known that he is an accomplice in terms of logistics and support. It was definitely bad faith by the Americans. It really shows that as far as the Americans are concerned, they only look after their interests.”

As for Rana, the former Home Secretary said, “He had a small role to play, more of a passive role in providing the legal cover for Headley to be able to come to India. His role was setting up the immigration office in Mumbai and employing Headley and it was dur9ig these trips that the latter identified the place of landing of the boat carrying the terrorists. He had done physical reconnaissance of all these places and passed on information to the ISI.”

There is reason for not just Pillai but any patriotic Indian to be dismayed and annoyed with the way the US saved the main culprit of 26/11 massacre while taking big credit for handing over to us with all the fanfare a mere accessory to that heinous crime.

David Coleman Headley, whose real name was Daood Gilani was a trained Pakistani terrorist having undertaken vigorous combat training at Pakistani military schools and terror centres of Lashkar-e-Toiba, born to a Muslim Pakistani father and a white American mother, both of whom met while working in the Pakistan embassy in Washington. Soon thereafter his father went back home and sometime later the mother separated and returned to the US. He owed his white skin and blue eyes to his mother and thus could easily pass off as a white American. To add to that, once he started working for the Lashkar he went back and officially changed his name from Dawood Gilani to David Coleman Headley. Thus, undergoing a full identity overhaul inspired perhaps by Robert Ludlum’s ‘Bourne Identity.’

All this is mentioned in the report of 24 January, 2013 of US Department of Justice (DoJ) Archives, the date on which Daood Gilani, nee Headley was convicted, not with a death penalty, which is the norm for all terror convicts, or even a life imprisonment but a lighter 35 years imprisonment.

The DoJ report states, “David Coleman Headley: the 26/11 conspirator who got away with his life. (He) struck a bargain with the US authorities, buying freedom from extradition to India in return for pleading guilty to all charges brought against him and cooperating with the prosecutors. He had been on the radar of investigators for long, and his ties with the Lashkar were likely known to US officials, according to investigators reporting on his role.
Headley was arrested at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on October 3, 2009. According to prosecutors, he was headed to Philadelphia, intending to ultimately travel to Pakistan to deliver surveillance videos to top operatives of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaeda. In March 2010, Headley pleaded guilty to all 12 counts that were brought against him. In his testimony to federal officials, Headley said that the Mumbai attacks were a joint operation of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI).

“There is little question that life imprisonment would be an appropriate punishment for Headley’s incredibly serious crimes but for the significant value provided by his immediate and extensive cooperation,” the government argued in seeking a sentence of 30 to 35 years on January 24, 2013, states the US Department of Justice (DoJ) Archives.

The DoJ report stated, “In consideration of Headley’s past cooperation and anticipated future cooperation, which would include debriefings for the purpose of gathering intelligence and national security information, as well as testifying in any foreign judicial proceedings held in the United States by way of deposition, video-conferencing or letters rogatory, the Attorney General of the United States authorized the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago not to seek the death penalty.

Headley admitted that he attended training camps in Pakistan operated by Lashkar e Tayyiba, a terrorist organization operating in that country, on five separate occasions between 2002 and 2005. In late 2005, Headley received instructions from three members of Lashkar to travel to India to conduct surveillance, which he did five times leading up to the Mumbai attacks in 2008 that killed approximately 164 people, including six Americans, and wounded hundreds more.

Headley attended a three week training course in the Lashkar camp starting February 2002 that provided indoctrination on the merits of waging jihad; a three-week course starting August 2002 that provided training in the use of weapons and grenades; a three-month course starting in April 2003 that taught close combat tactics, the use of weapons and grenades, and survival skills; a three-week course starting in August 2003 that taught counter-surveillance skills; and a three-month course starting in December 2003 that provided combat and tactical training, the DoJ report stated.

The DoJ report clearly disclosed that he “after receiving instructions in late 2005 to conduct surveillance in India, changed his given name from Daood Gilani in February 2006 in Philadelphia to facilitate his activities on behalf of Lashkar by portraying himself in India as an American who was neither Muslim nor Pakistani.

Before the April 2008 surveillance trip, Headley and co-conspirators in Pakistan discussed potential landing sites in Mumbai for a team of attackers who would arrive by sea. Headley returned to Mumbai with a global positioning system device and took boat trips around the Mumbai harbour and entered various locations into the device.

And yet the US state department patted itself on its back over Headley’s so-called conviction stating that “Today’s sentence is an important milestone in our continuing efforts to hold accountable those responsible for the Mumbai terrorist attacks and to achieve justice for the victims. Our investigations into Mumbai attacks and the Denmark terror plot are ongoing and active. I thank the many agents, analysts and prosecutors responsible for this investigation and prosecution,” said Lisa Monaco, (the then) Assistant Attorney General for National Security.