New Delhi, November 22
An inquiry has revealed that the Indian Consulate in Chicago was guilty of a major security lapse while issuing visas to Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani- Canadian arrested by the FBI for allegedly plotting terror strikes in India, and his wife.

The 48-year-old Pakistan-born businessman based in Chicago was issued a multi-entry visa for a period of a year and his spouse Samraz Rana Akhtar was given a five-year multiple-entry visa by the consulate last year which enabled them to visit Mumbai and several other places in India days before the 26/11 terror strikes. The visas were issued at the discretion of Indian Consulate General.

An internal inquiry has shown that the residential address provided in the

visa applications by Rana couple does not exist. Moreover, an immigration services company, where Rana claimed to have been employed, told the Indian authorities that he was never employed by them nor did they have a branch in Mumbai as stated by him, official sources said today.

This flies in the face of the claim made by the consulate last week that it had done “due scrutiny” before issuing visas to Rana and his wife. The consulate did not reply to e-mailed questions from PTI about the revelations that have been made in the course of internal inquiry. External Affairs Minister SM Krishna had publicly stated that the issuance of visas to Rana and his wife would be inquired into.

Both the visas were issued “under the discretion of the Consul General” and the Home Ministry had maintained that it was in violation of rules under which its clearance is required for any person born in Pakistan. Rana was born in Chichawatni, while his wife was born in Bahawalpur. Both the places are in Pakistan’s Punjab province. The two were exempted even from registering with the police if their stay did not exceed 180 days.

Senior government officials said there was a circular of 2004 under which the visa applications of people of Pakistan, Iran and Bangladesh origin should be referred to the Home Ministry for clearance. However, the circular gave discretion to ambassadors and consuls general to give visas to such nationals which the Consular General in Chicago had utilised, the sources said.

Rana and his wife arrived in Mumbai on November 12 last year after which they travelled to Kochi in Kerala on November 16. An associate of a US citizen David Headley, who has also been arrested on terror charges by the FBI last month, Rana and Samraz had stayed in a five-star hotel for a night in Kochi during which they were allegedly looking for recruits for Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Toiba.

Ahead of the Kochi visit, Rana had advertised in a prominent English daily asking youths willing to immigrate to the US and Canada to appear for interview.

Rana and his school friend Headley were arrested last month by the FBI on charges of being part of a plan by Pakistan-based LeT to carry out terror attacks in India and Denmark.

The NIA was also looking for people who had booked the advertisement in the newspaper. A team of central security agencies had also visited Kochi edition of a prominent English daily to take details about the people or agency which had booked the advertisement on behalf of Rana. — PTI

Geneva, November 22
US investigators believe that some elements in Pakistan’s ISI could be linked to American terror suspect David Headley who is currently in FBI custody for trying to plot attacks in India.

The investigators made this assessment on the basis of the arrest of “two key persons” in Pakistan, sources said.

Illyas Kashmiri, a former Pakistani military officer who has become a militant commander associated with both Al-Qaida and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), is one among them.

They have also zeroed in on a Pakistani national who is suspected to be a key link between LeT handlers, Headley and his Pakistani-Canadian associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the sources added.

The sources said India is expected to know within a week from the US whether Headley and Rana, who are operatives of the LeT, were involved in the Mumbai attack. Agencies in India have been suspecting that the duo could have been involved in the attack.

The sources said there was no evidence so far to link the duo with the Mumbai attack.

India and the US are in constant touch on the Headley case and Washington has conveyed that within a week there could be “authentic” information whether they were involved in the attack, the sources added.

A Pakistani national believed to be a common link between the LeT handlers like Zaki-ur Lakhvi and the two terror suspects detained by the FBI has been identified and probe on him is expected to reveal whether Headley and Rana had any role.

The national, whose identity has been kept secret, is believed to have been in Pakistan at the time of Mumbai carnage.

Headley, a Pakistan-born US citizen, and Rana, Pak-born Canadian citizen, were arrested last month by FBI for allegedly plotting terror attacks in India and Denmark.

Indian investigators have found that the duo had visited India a number of times and toured various places apparently to conduct recce. — PTI

Headley had vowed to ‘retaliate’ against India

Washington: Pakistani-origin US national David Coleman Headley, nabbed by FBI on charges of plotting terror attacks on Indian facilities, had vowed to “retaliate against India” in one of his e-mail messages intercepted by investigators.

“We will retaliate against India,” 49-year-old Headley wrote in the message, ‘The New York Times’ reported today.Featuring the growth of Headley from his birth till being arrested by the FBI last month along with his school-time friend Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a US-based Pakistan-born Canadian national, the daily said the indictment against him portrays a man who moved easily between different worlds.“The profile that has emerged of him since his arrest, however, suggests that Headley felt pulled between two cultures and ultimately gravitated toward an extremist Islamic one,” the newspaper said.

“Some of us are saying that ‘terrorism’ is the weapon of the cowardly,” Headley wrote in an e-mail message to his high school classmates last February.

“I will say that you may call it barbaric or immoral or cruel, but never cowardly.” He further said, “Courage is, by and large, exclusive to the Muslim nation”.His e-mail messages, including many that defended beheadings and suicide bombings as heroic, are among the evidence in the government’s case against him and his co-conspirator, 48-year-old Rana, who runs businesses in Chicago, the daily said. — PTI

New Delhi, November 22
The CIA chief has come out with more information on Pakistan-based terror groups at meetings with officials of Indian intelligence agencies.

Leon E Panetta, who is on a three-day visit to India, called on National Security Adviser MK Narayanan yesterday. The discussion revolved around terror groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan. India is learnt to have expressed its agony at Pakistan’s continuing support and abetment to terror groups on its soil. The role of the Pakistani spy agency, the ISI, was also discussed.

Panetta also held a meeting with Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) director KC Verma for two hours where matters relating to counterterrorism and intelligence sharing on Lashkar-e-Toiba, HuJI and Jaish-e-Mohammed were brought up by India.Later, in the evening, Panetta had meeting with IB chief Rajiv Mathur. Another US agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is probing the role of US citizen David Headley and Rana in plotting terror strikes in the US and India.