By TwoCircles.net staff reporter,
Mumbai: In a major embarrassment to the Anti Terror Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra the American national Kenneth Heywood has given the police a slip and fled India.
He is the man from whose Internet Protocol (IP) address the emails containing terror threat were sent to some TV channels just minutes before the Ahmadabad serial bomb blasts on July 26. In the bombings 55 people were killed and about 200 wounded.
He managed to leave India very easily in spite of the fact that ATS had issued a national lookout notice against him.
So ATS was red faced when the media informed it that Heywood has skipped India via Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi.
Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare told media that ATS was not informed that he was leaving the country.
Till recently the police was interrogating him and even the proposal of his narco test was on cards.
He was picked up by the police when the e-mails ware traced to his Navi Mumbai residence.
Forty-four-year-old Haywood was working in Campbell White, an MNC in Mumbai. He is said to have cooperated with the police in the process of investigation. However, he had failed to appear in last some days despite repeated summons.
Haywood’s lawyer Viahal Romeshwar said in an interview to a private TV channel that his client was unhappy with the incorrect and unauthentic news in the media regarding his role in the blasts.
According to some media reports till Monday afternoon, Haywood was still of significance for the investigation process.
What was remarkable in the whole episode and what kept every one puzzled is that why was Haywood’s passport not impounded by the ATS.
But the Maharashtra ATS chief said that they could not have impounded Haywood’s passport as he was not an accused in the case.
As a face saving exercise the ATS gave him a clean when he has fled India. And to avoid embarrassment any further the police claim that it has found the mastermind of the Ahmadabad serial blasts.
The way Haywood escaped speaks volumes about the sorry state of affairs in the police, intelligence and the airport security in India.