Close X
Saturday, November 16, 2024
ADVT 
India

David Headley Says Al Qaeda Wanted To Attack India

Darpan News Desk IANS, 12 Feb, 2016 11:28 AM
    Pakistani-American terrorist-turned-approver David Coleman Headley on Friday said the global terror network Al Qaeda wanted to attack India’s National Defence College in New Delhi as he also revealed a medley of Lashkar-e-Taiba plans to strike terror in the country.
     
    Headley, who has been testifying through video-conferencing since Monday before a special court in Mumbai for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, claimed that Al Qaeda considered the defence college as "a good, high-value target with many senior military officers".
     
    He said he visited the college campus casually for a survey in 2007 at the instance of Al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri.
     
    In his ongoing deposition before Special TADA Judge G.A. Sanap, Headley revealed how the Lashkar nefariously planned to eliminate Shiv Sena founder late Bal Thackeray.
     
    Headley, 56, spoke of developing close links with Rajaram Rege, the former PRO of present Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray, by luring him with a business offer to access Shiv Sena Bhavan which was also on the target list of LeT.
     
    “I took videos of the Shiv Sena Bhavan from outside and inside... I thought LeT would be interested in attacking it or even carry assassination of its (then) head (Bal Thackeray),” Headley said.
     
    He said he provided two-three videos to his Pakistani handlers Sajid Mir and Major Iqbal.
     
     
    Rege admitted that he knew Headley but said he never took him to the Shiv Sena Bhavan.
     
    Sena MP Sanjay Raut said the Thackerays and the party have always been targeted by international terror groups "since we are the only ones who speak out against Pakistan”.
     
    The terrorist-turned-approver also talked about the Lashkar plans to hit Mumbai’s famed Siddhi Vinayak Temple and attempts to recruit staffers from the sensitive Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) to tap them for “classified information”.
     
    "The ISI wanted to recruit BARC staffers for future... to get classified information from them," Headley said.
     
    The Lashkar operative, jailed in the US for his terror activities, said that he came in touch with actor Rahul Bhatt, son of veteran film-maker Mahesh Bhatt, through the in-charge of the upmarket Moksha Gym. Headley was a member of the gym from October 2006.
     
    He said he again surveyed the NDC, Chabad Houses in international tourist destinations like Goa, Pune and Pushkar after the Mumbai attack on the instructions of Kashmiri.
     
    He said he handed over videos of the famed Siddhi Vinayak Temple in Dadar and the Naval Air Station to his main contacts Mir and Iqbal.
     
    Outside the temple, he said, he bought a bunch of around 15 red and yellow coloured sacred threads and sent them to Mir so the terrorists could tie them around their wrists and pass off as Hindus and avoid detection.
     
    Headley claimed to have discussed the temple and other terror plans with his LeT handlers and the ISI discouraged them from targeting the temple, Indian Navy's air force station, Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and Gateway of India in Mumbai as they were very heavily guarded sites when he surveyed them.
     
    On his spying activities, Headley said he followed the progress of Indian Army and on one trip to Mumbai, he bought a book "Indian Army-Vision 2020" from Nalanda Books & Record Shop in Hotel Taj Mahal Palace.
     
    He had purchased four other books - "Royal Rajasthan", "India's Jewish Heritage", "The Grand Trunk Road" and "Polo In India" - but the army book was of great interest to him, he said.
     
    "The other four books were mostly pictorial and there was nothing 
    sinister about them."
     
    At this, Judge Sanap enquired whether there was anything "sinister" (motives) about the book on Indian Army, Headley replied: "Yes... My Lord!”
     
    At one point in the deposition, Nikam suddenly shot a question about a 
    woman named Kainaz.
     
    "She was a friend from Mumbai," Headley replied.
     
    "Friend or girlfriend," Nikam countered.
     
     
    "Not a girlfriend, just a friend," a visibly irritated Headley replied.
     
    Later, identifying a picture of the captured and hanged terrorist Ajmal Kasab, Headley said the LeT was “saddened” by his arrest during the November 26, 2008, Mumbai attack.

    MORE India ARTICLES

    NRI Should Vote In Panchayat, Municipal Polls: Congress

    NRI Should Vote In Panchayat, Municipal Polls: Congress
    NRIs can participate in democracy in the true sense only after they are allowed to vote in grassroots elections to representative bodies like panchayat and municipalities, Congress Goa unit president Luizinho Faleiro

    NRI Should Vote In Panchayat, Municipal Polls: Congress

    Three-Year-Old Girl Raped In Delhi By Unidentified Assailant

    Three-Year-Old Girl Raped In Delhi By Unidentified Assailant
    A case has been registered against unknown people in south Delhi's Sarojini Nagar police station, and efforts were on to identify the accused, police said.

    Three-Year-Old Girl Raped In Delhi By Unidentified Assailant

    Lalit Modi Partying At Foreign Locales: Huffington Post

    Lalit Modi Partying At Foreign Locales: Huffington Post
    Huffington Post India reproduced the email exchanges between Sushma Swaraj, Lalit Modi, Indian-origin British MP Keith Vaz, and the minister's family.

    Lalit Modi Partying At Foreign Locales: Huffington Post

    Sushma In Row Over Helping Lalit Modi With Travel Papers

    External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday was at the centre of a row after admitting to having helped former IPL chief Lalit Modi procure documents to travel to Portugal last July on "humanitarian grounds"

    Sushma In Row Over Helping Lalit Modi With Travel Papers

    Will Fight For Your Rights: Rahul Tells Sanitation Workers

    Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday reiterated his support for Delhi's sanitation workers, saying he will give his "whole life" to fight for the rights of the under-privileged.

    Will Fight For Your Rights: Rahul Tells Sanitation Workers

    Six Dead, 100 Hospitalised In Ammonia Gas Leak In Ludhiana

    Six Dead, 100 Hospitalised In Ammonia Gas Leak In Ludhiana
    The leak occurred when the tanker got stuck under a flyover on the Doraha Bypass Road along a canal, about 25 kms from here, they said.

    Six Dead, 100 Hospitalised In Ammonia Gas Leak In Ludhiana