26/11's Italian link among others were safely buried in 2009

The Home Ministry is likely to take the probe into the 26/11 attack to another level with the Enforcement Directorate providing details about the funding. It was found that a same module had funded Kashmiri separatists and also the 26/11 attackers.

The ED will send a report to the Union Home Ministry soon following which the further course of action will be decided. There are various questions that need to be addressed a Home Ministry official informed OneIndia while also adding that the Italian and local links will need to be probed in-depth.

There are three angles of the 26/11 attack that would be probed. It was found that for some strange reason that the Mumbai crime branch never probed these angles. In fact the prosecution led by Ujwal Nikam had egg on its face when it could not even sustain its own case against Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmed.

The local link:

There are two local links that the Mumbai crime branch never went into during its probe into the 26/11 attack. The crime branch was in a teething hurry to close the case by relying entirely and totally just on the statements of Ajmal Kasab.

What it failed to note is the several complaints about how the gunmen had landed in Mumbai three days prior to the attack and got in touch with a politically well connected lady who ran the diesel scam from Machimarnagar. A very prominent political party in Maharashtra is alleged to be backing this woman who also has links to the Dawood Ibrahim gang.

Several investigators in fact expressed helplessness about various aspects regarding the probe. From day one of the investigation the message to the investigators was to focus only on Pakistan and not look anywhere else. In the bargain India ended up letting go of the enemy within.

The other link was that of a man called Basheer. A travel agent who is a good friend of Tawwahur Rana, Basheer was the one who received David Headley at the airport. For some strange reason, the police never went into this link.

The Italian link:

The unearthing of a money route from Italy to India has raised several questions. A gang of several members including a father-son duo were arrested in Italy for transferring money to various accounts in India. They were initially arrested in 2009 for transferring money to the accounts of the Lashkar-e-Tayib. The money was used to make the VoIP calls at the time of the attack.

The ED has now found that it was the same gang that sent money across to the aides of separatists in Kashmir. India had in 2009 made a feeble attempt to gather more information, but went quiet after the Italian police said that this gang had stolen the identity of a person by the name Iqbal to carry out the job.

However what was more surprising was India did not make any effort an year later when the Spanish police arrested a person called Athar Butt. This man who also hailed from Italy was involved in stealing passports of persons and handing over the identification details to the module in Italy. However the Indian authorities in 2010 too showed no great interest.

The David Headly drama:

Instead of chasing the real links that were available, India continued to chase David Headley. Despite Headley entering into a plea bargain with the Americans, the Indian government had lied that they were planning on extraditing him.

The fact is that there was no way that Headley could have been extradited. His plea bargain deal with the Americans made it clear that he shall not be extradited to any country and also shall not be awarded a death sentence. The NIA managed to question him once for around 72 hours. Headley spoke exactly what he had testified before the FBI during his first round of investigation.

The NIA today has only this testimony with it and the question of interrogating him again does not arise leave alone extraditing Headley. With the Headley issue safely buried, the Indian government then said that they would question his accomplice Tawwahur Rana. However, Rana was acquitted by a US court in connection with the 26/11 attack.

India then said that it would still go ahead and question him. The fact is that till date no Indian investigator has managed to lay his hands on Rana.