Small BusinessNo police officer deputed to question Headley
The government today said it has not deputed any police official to go US to question David Coleman Headley, who was planning to target key installations in the country at LeT"s behest.
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"As per available information, no police official has been deputed yet to visit USA to question David Coleman Headley," Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Maken told Rajya Sabha in reply to a question.
"There exists a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty in criminal matters between India and the USA. Cooperation is extended in terms of the provisions of this Treaty, on a case to case basis," Maken said.
Headley, according to the dossier of the FBI shared with Indian security agencies, said that he was conducting surveillance of the synagogue at the direction of Mir as he was under the wrong belief that the cartoonist of Denmark newspaper was Jewish.
However, the practice of learning the Jewish way of praying was utilised in Nariman House, which was visited by Headley in the first half of last year, while posing as a Jew.
Statements of some of the witnesses who had either seen or accompanied Headley to Nariman House, also known as Chabbad House, have been recorded. A Rabbi and his wife were among the six killed there.
The attack by Lashker terrorists last year in the five-storeyed house, which can be approached only through narrow lanes and by-lanes of Colaba, had left the security agencies without any doubt that a proper recee had been conducted before the srike.
The statements include of those people who had taken him to Nariman House on their motorcycles, the sources said, adding one of the witnesses, whose statement has been recorded, told the investigators that Headley went inside the house and posed as a Jew and interacted with the inmates for a long time.
Another witness in his statement recalls that Headley had taken a round with him around the area to ascertain the entry and exit points of the Nariman House, sources said.
Six of the occupants including Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and five-month pregnant wife Rivka were killed by Lashker militants. The two-year-old son of Rabbi -- Moshe -- was saved by her nanny Sandra Samuel.