US National Ken Haywood felt that he was being “needlessly harassed” by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in connection with the probe into the terror email sent before the Ahmedabad blasts and fled the country as he thought the episode wouldn’t end anytime soon.

Haywood emailed a one-sentence reply on Tuesday evening in response to questions from The Indian Express on why he had fled the country. “Sorry, I am not involved, and have never really been, I know nothing more than you do,” he said.

American diplomatic sources as well as his lawyer told The Indian Express that they believed the ATS had no case against Haywood even as the authorities in Mumbai sought to blame their counterparts at Delhi airport for letting him pass through immigration despite a look-out notice, and board a flight to the US on the intervening night of August 16-17.

It seemed clear all along that Haywood’s WiFi Internet connection had been hacked to send the email minutes before the serial blasts in Ahmedabad and that he had no links with any terror group, sources said. “Yet they went after him and subjected him to all kinds of questioning and even conducted lie-detector tests,” one source said. “This could have gone on for years and he must have said enough was enough and decided to get on with his life.”

For the record, the US Embassy spokeswoman in Delhi, Elizabeth Fitzsimmons, said the embassy had no comment to offer as Haywood was a private American citizen. His lawyer, G S Hegde, said Haywood gave no indication of wanting to leave India when he last spoke to him on Friday. “But he was mentally very tired, seemed like he wanted to get away from it all in the sense that he wanted this ordeal to end, be home, relax,” added the lawyer.

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