By IANS,
Mumbai : Mumbai Police are “shocked” that US national Kenneth Haywood, whose computer was allegedly hacked to send the July 26 Ahmedabad terror email, managed to leave India with his wife and two daughters despite a look-out notice for him at all Indian airports.
ATS chief Hemant Karkare told mediapersons that the look-out notice, under the FRRO, was issued soon after Haywood’s name cropped up in the wake of the Amhedabad serial blasts and he was questioned.
He said when the police last enquired about the status of the notice on Aug 16, they were informed that it was “in force”.
Yet, Haywood and his family managed to evade detection and left for the US from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport.
The family’s passports had not been seized or impounded by police and Haywood, employed as general manager with the US company Campbell White, had offered full cooperation to the investigating agencies.
In another setback for the police’s efforts to unravel the mystery behind the terror email, the reports of all the forensic, polygraphy and lie-detector tests conducted on Haywood and nine of his neighbours from Navi Mumbai on Aug 13-14 have been negative.
Karkare declined to comment if the ATS would seek Haywood’s extradition from the US.
Asked whether the ATS would have permitted him to leave if he had sought clearance, he replied in the affirmative.
Karkare said that as per information available, the Haywoods left India early Sunday, bound for the US.
The look-out notice was issued in the routine course by the ATS since it was investigating him in connection with the email warning sent by the outfit, Indian Mujahideen, minutes before the Ahmedabad blasts. Subsequently, the email was traced to Haywood’s Internet protocol address.
Haywood’s lawyer G.S. Hegde told IANS Tuesday evening that the US citizen had not contacted him since Aug 15. “That was the last we spoke. Then I was out of Mumbai for the weekend and on Monday when I tried to call Haywood, his phone was switched off,” Hegde said.
However, Hegde said he was not worried about recovering his professional fees since he had been engaged as a corporate legal consultant with Haywood’s company at their Bangalore headquarters.