MUMBAI: The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) is on the trail to trace missing Pakistan actress Laila, alias Sara Khan.
Laila came under the ATS radar as it believed that she was in possession of a satellite phone. Police have information that satellite phones were used at her weekend getaway at Igatpuri in Nashik, Maharashtra. In India, satellite phone cannot be purchased off the shelf and its use is illegal, unless a no-objection certificate is obtained from the Department of Telecommunication.
It has come to light that terrorists used satellite phones as a Thuraya satellite phone was recovered from the fishing trawler used by terrorists in the 26/11 terror attacks. Laila left for her Igatpuri farmhouse from her Oshiwara residence in Mumbai and informed Prakash Mangol, the caretaker of the farmhouse, that she would be leaving for Jammu and Kashmir in January, 2011 and nobody heard from her thereafter.
Eight months after her disappearance, her father Nadir Shah reported her as missing at the Oshiwara police station in August last year. However, police sources say that Nadir was keen on the getting her apartment transferred to his name rather than launching a search to trace his daughter. Subsequently, Laila’s car was found abandoned in Srinagar where she had been last sighted. Moreover, after Laila left, her farmhouse was gutted in a mysterious fire. The ATS sleuths suspect that fire may not be an accident, but to destroy evidence.