Pakistan’s Consul General in Chicago personally knew both David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, nabbed by the FBI for planning to carry out a major terror attack in India at the behest of Lashkar-e-Toiba, the US authorities have claimed.
The FBI, in its revised chargesheet filed before a Chicago court, said the Consul General of Pakistan in Chicago personally knows both Rana and Headley alias ‘Daood Gilani’, as all three of them are from the same highschool. According to the website of the Pakistan Embassy here, Dr Aman Rashid is the Consul General in Chicago.
“On or about September 25, 2009, Rana spoke by telephone with the Consul General at the Pakistani Consulate in Chicago in an effort to obtain a five-year visa for Headley to travel to Pakistan. It is clear from the e-mail traffic unrelated to terrorist plotting that the Consul General knows Rana and Headley personally as all three attended the same highschool,” the FBI claimed.
However, the affidavit does not say if the Consul General was aware or had any inclination of the terrorist connection of Rana and Headley. Rana (48) and Headley (49) were products of the same military school in Karachi.
The transcripts of the taped conversations, both e-mail and telephone, reveals that LeT was planning to use Headley for attack on a mysterious Indian actor ‘Rahul’ — which Indian intelligence agencies say could be a code message.
Headley stated that he intended to travel to Pakistan in early October to meet with an unidentified LeT Individual ‘B’ and (Ilyas) Kashmiri, the FBI told the court. It said Headley had already travelled to Pakistan from late January to early March of 2009, during which he visited FATA.
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