MUMBAI: Pakistani-American terror agent David Headley on Saturday told a special court that the LeT and Al-Qaeda had assured him that nothing would happen to its top leaders Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, as action taken against them by Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was “superficial”.
With this the Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam closed Headley’s examination. The defense lawyer of Abu Jundal, another accused in the 26/11 attack will soon conduct a cross examination of Headley.
Headley said he had been concerned about the safety of Saeed and Lakhvi and hence had been in constant contact with LeT operative Sajid Mir and Al-Qaeda member Abdul Rehman Pasha. “Pasha in reply to one of my mails had said, ‘don’t worry everything here is normal’. By this Pasha meant that I need not worry as action against them and other LeT members was superficial,” Headley said.
“The FIA was conducting investigations, interrogating people and pursuing people from the LeT. Hence I asked Mir about ‘old uncle’ (Saeed) and ‘young uncle’(Lakhvi). Mir in his reply said ‘young uncle was fine and flying high. I think by this Mir meant that Lakhvi’s morale was high even though he was in prison at that time. Mir also said that old uncle was fit and healthy like anything. Don’t put ears to rumours, he is moving back and forth like a tornado for his business and he (Mir) gave solace,” Headley said.
He said that Mir had sent him an email eight months after the attacks saying that another location needed to be scouted in India for future attacks. He told the court that he was never arrested or called in for interrogations by the FIA despite making several visits to Pakistan after the attacks. “Sajid Mir or Major Iqbal were also never arrested by the FIA.”
“In March 2009, I sent a mail to Rana and enclosed my will. I sent it as I knew that I was going back to India and in the event that I would be arrested or killed I wanted him to take care of certain personal/family matters as I thought it was a responsible thing to do,” Headley said.
He revealed Mir and Iqbal had encouraged him to develop ties with Shiv Sena worker Rajaram Rege. Headley said he had suggested to Rege to call Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray and his son Uddhav to the US so they could ‘take care’ of them.