New Delhi: As Foreign Minister S M Krishna leaves for Pakistan to talk peace, the government has said it has fresh evidence — based on the interrogation of 26/11 accused David Headley — to show that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist Hafiz Saeed played a “much more significant” role in planning and executing the terrorist attack on Mumbai than was earlier known.
In the first official statement on the interrogation of Headley -- a US citizen of Pakistani origin who was arrested by US authorities in Chicago last year and questioned by a team from India in May -- Home Secretary G K Pillai said it was now clear that both the ISI and Saeed were involved in the Mumbai attacks from the beginning till the end. Headley made several visits to India and is accused of scouting targets for the attacks.
"The real sense that has come out from Headley's interrogation is that the ISI has had a much more significant role to play (in the Mumbai attacks, than was earlier thought). It was not just a peripheral role. They (ISI) were literally controlling and coordinating it (the attacks) from the beginning till the end," Pillai said at Idea Exchange, an interaction with The Indian Express journalists here.
"The same goes for Hafiz Saeed. He was also not a peripheral player. He knew everything," Pillai said.
For example, Pillai said, Headley had told interrogators that at one point his wife had approached Hafiz Saeed and complained that he (her husband) was not giving her any time and neglecting her. Hafiz Saeed apparently told this to Headley. Headley then told Saeed that he was taking a few days off to be with his wife but in that case the "Bombay project" would suffer. At this point, Hafiz is said to have instructed Headley to continue working on the "Bombay project" and that his wife could wait, said Pillai.
"This was revealed by Headley himself. So this is the kind of importance Saeed attached to the Bombay project. Saeed was not someone who didn't know anything about it (the attacks)," Pillai said, adding that Headley had not just answered to the questions posed by the interrogators but also shared some gossip.
The Home Secretary said the government was hoping that during Krishna's two-day visit to Pakistan, starting Wednesday, Islamabad would share information on some concrete steps it had taken against the planners and perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks.
He said it was now Pakistan's responsibility to carry forward the investigation into the attacks. "We have given them a whole series of data, and information that we have. We have given them the names, we have given them the descriptions (of terrorists and their handlers), we have given them what their height is or their complexion is. Whatever descriptions we have been able to obtain from our investigations, we have shared them with Pakistan. Now it is up to them and all I can say is that their interior minister said (during Home Minister P Chidambaram's visit to Pakistan last month) and I quote 'You would not be disappointed in our response'. So we have to wait and see how much they can do."
