Until less than a fortnight ago, the run-up to the first anniversary of the 26/11 nightmare was moving along predictable lines. Authorities in Mumbai were planning memorial events and a show of the police’s new might, think-tanks were organising security conferences, some of the places targeted by the ten Lashkar-e-Toiba men were gearing for sombre ceremonies to remember the dead, and the media was busy revisiting families of victims and survivors. And then came the names of David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana, the two alleged Lashkar men arrested by the FBI in the US in connection with plots to launch attacks in Denmark and India. The speculation that has since ensued has also been on predictable lines. The headlines have all but linked the two men with the conspiracy and planning of 26/11 although there has hardly been anything substantial in the public domain to connect them.

The timing is perhaps just a coincidence but the episode is moving in the direction of raising fresh questions about the kind of local help the ten Lashkar gunmen had. This has been one of the more enduring mysteries about the attack despite Mumbai Police arresting alleged Indian Lashkar operatives Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmed and accusing them of preparing the ground for the raid by drawing maps, taking photographs and making videos for their Lashkar bosses to plan 26/11.

Some investigators continue to argue how it would still be impossible for the attackers to find the Jewish centre of Nariman House in an obscure lane in south Mumbai unless they were physically guided there after arriving by boat from Karachi. Others have toyed with the theory that at least one of the ten men had made a trip to Mumbai at least once before and this was probably the group leader Abu Ismail, Ajmal Kasab’s accomplice, who was killed in the shootout on Marine Drive. But there is no unanimity on the possibilities, and conspiracy theorists continue to have a field day. The names of Headley and Rana have only made the story murkier and remind us that we still do not know everything we ought to, about a key aspect of 26/11.

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