With investigators trying to piece together details of US national David Coleman Headley’s nine visits to India over a three-year period starting 2006, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) today registered an FIR against Headley, his Canadian accomplice Tahawwur Hussain Rana and four “unknown” others for allegedly plotting terror strikes against India. The case, NIA’s fourth, has been registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for conspiring to wage war against the country.

Sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs said the government had enough evidence to show that Headley had links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and there were plans to produce the evidence in the US court sometime in January when the FBI is supposed to file a chargesheet against Headley and Rana. Sources said a formal request for Headley’s and Rana’s extradition may follow.

The FIR filed by the NIA against Headley and Rana directly implicates them for “committing terrorist acts in New Delhi and other places in India.”

The FIR, lodged in the Patiala House courts today, states that besides Delhi and Mumbai, Headley also visited Pune “and conducted surveillance of potential targets for future terrorist attacks”.

But it makes no mention of the role of the two terror suspects in the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai and states that it was Rana who “introduced his contacts to Headley and Headley thereafter travelled to India several times under the guise of various persons.”

Headley has been described by the NIA as a resident as Chicago and Rana, a Pakistani also based in the same city and someone who was engaged in different business activities.

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