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Atta
parallel: FBI seeks dope on NRI for Sept 11 links
DALIP
SINGH
NEW
DELHI, OCTOBER 18: THE name of a Non Resident Indian
(NRI) has cropped up in the FBI’s investigation of the September
11 attacks for purchasing air tickets in a manner similar
to Mohammed Atta’s, one of the suicide hijackers who rammed
an American Airlines plane into the WTC.
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A-I
baffled over extra travellers aboard flight
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TARIQ
MIR
MUMBAI, OCTOBER 18: AIR-INDIA calls it ‘mischief’
but it looks more like a big security lapse. Its Mumbai-Delhi-Jeddah
flight (AI 869) on October 14 may have carried two passengers
who did not undergo security check at Mumbai airport.
The airline claims it was a case of a passenger buying
two extra tickets. It has appointed a two-member team
to inquire. The goof-up came to light when the boarding
cards were collected and counted in Delhi.
The number of people who got in at Mumbai and got down
at Delhi did not tally. There were two extra boarding
cards, both unstamped, in the names of Aman and Kapoor.
A-I’s Jitendra Bhargava said there was no security lapse
and said Aman and Kapoor existed only on boarding cards.
Sources at Mumbai airport suspect the two passengers
must have dodged checkpoints and immigration counter.
Officials were at a loss to explain how airline officials
at Delhi let the passenger with three cards go.
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The
FBI has requested India to screen the antecedents of an NRI
living in Blackwood, New Jersey, to establish if he has a
criminal background or links with the plotters of Terror Tuesday.
The Indian agencies have told the FBI they have no such criminal
record and that it could be a coincidence that he had bought
tickets in the same fashion as Atta did.
Sources said American Airlines (AA) had carried out a search
to trace how the hijackers bought tickets, and submitted the
report to the FBI last month. AA lost two flights (nos. 11
and 77) — one was hijacked from Dulles international airport
and was bound for Los Angeles but crashed into Pentagon. The
other from Boston to Los Angeles rammed into the WTC.
An FBI inquiry showed that the 29-year-old NRI made his reservation
and purchased tickets through the internet and paid the fare
using a Visa card. The man, who has a Yahoo email ID, accessed
the website of travel agency Travelocity to book the tickets
from a Kinkos store — an internet kiosk — said a senior intelligence
officer, and took the Continental Airlines flight.
Atta had booked his reservation for the American Airlines
flight on August 28 with AA.com, using Advantage Profile,
the FBI has found. In the reservation application slip, he
had filled his address as 3389, Sheridan Street, 256, Hollywood,
Florida-33021-3808 and paid for the fare with his Visa credit
card.
The FBI has shared information with Indian authorities on
the NRI’s personal details, including date of birth, driving
licence, social security number, visa issue date and the names
of his relatives and their home addresses in the US.
The FBI has also identified four other associates of Ayub
Khan and Mohammed Jahamgil alias Mohammed Azmath, the two
men from Hyderabad who were detained after a search was conducted
at Tonnelle Avenue Apartment in Jersy City, New Jersy, on
September 15. They were accused of possessing doctored passports.
The FBI, which was recently in Hyderabad to interrogate persons
close to Khan and Azmath, is scruitnising the money transferred
to an account (no. 01192005359) in the Malakpet NRI branch
of State Bank of Hyderabad.
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