 "26/11 case: David Headley says ready to depose if he receives pardon")
Making fresh disclosures on the brazen 26/11 attacks, Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley today said that Ishrat Jahan, a 19-year-old student who was killed in an alleged 'fake encounter' in Gujarat in 2004, was affiliated to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Deposing before the court, Headley claimed that the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attack, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi told him about a botched up operation of Muzammil in India.
"The operation was about shooting the police at some naka. One woman LeT named Ishrat Jahan was involved. Muzammil Bhatt was the head of our group before Sajid Mir," he told the court.
He, however, denied the involvement of any woman suicide bomber in LeT.
Early on the morning of 15 June 2004, Ishrat Jahan, Javed Sheikh, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana were shot dead on the road leading to the Kotarpur waterworks in the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The encounter was carried out allegedly by a team led by DIG D G Vanjara, who was later jailed for his alleged involvement in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter.
The police alleged that Ishrat and her associates were Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives involved in a plot to assassinate the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. Later, an investigation was launched into the allegations that Ishrat was killed in a fake encounter. After a long investigation, in 2009, an Ahmedabad Metropolitan court ruled that the encounter was staged.
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The decision was challenged by the Gujarat State government, and taken to the High Court. On 3 July 2013, the CBI has filed its first chargesheet in an Ahmedabad court saying that the shooting was a staged encounter carried out in cold blood.
In his deposition, Headley also exposed how ISI and LeT majorly funded terror operations in India and financed him from time to time. He also revealed that Pakistan native Tahawwur Rana visited Mumbai before the terror strikes.
Resuming his deposition before a special court in Mumbai today via video-link after a day's break, resulting from a technical glitch at the US end yesterday, the LeT operative also said that RBI had turned down a request to open a bank account for their office in India.
Giving details of his funding, he said, "Before coming to India in September 2006, he received $25,000 from ISI's Major Iqbal."
"I also got 40,000 in Pakistani currency from LeT operative Sajid Mir between April and June 2008," he told the court, adding that Major Iqbal used to regularly sent him money in installments.
"Also, Major Iqbal gave me counterfeit Indian currency once or twice in 2008," he said. Abdul Rehman Pasha, also from ISI, gave him Rs 80,000, he added.
"Tahawur Rana (Headley's associate and a Pakistani native who operated a Chicago-based immigration business) used to send me money from the US in September 2006 when I came to India to do intelligence work on instructions of LeT," he told the court.
The 55-year-old, who recently turned approver in the case, also said that "it was my idea to open an office in India. It was a part of my cover (as an immigration consultant). I had discussed about this with Major Iqbal and Sajid Mir and they both agreed to it."
"I also told Rana that Major Iqbal had asked me to do intelligence work in India. Iqbal told me that if Rana was reluctant to be associated with this (Headley's India operations) then he (Headley) should appeal to his (Rana's) sense of patriotism towards Pakistan," he testified.
"But Rana was not reluctant and he agreed readily for me to go to India," Headley said.
Headley also revealed that Rana had visited Mumbai before the terror attacks.
"I advised Rana to leave India before the attacks as I was afraid that he would be in danger," he told the court.
Headley also disclosed that Rana had asked Raymond Sanders (who ran an immigrant law centre in Chicago) to submit an application to the RBI to open a bank account for their office in India.
However, RBI turned down the request, he said.
