By IANS,
New Delhi: The government said it would form a team of investigators to quiz David Headley as Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium returned Saturday from a US visit that has cleared “all bottlenecks” on direct access to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)operative.
The home ministry Saturday said a team of investigators, including sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), will be set up to question Headley.
“The team will visit the US soon after it is formed. We are also preparing a set of questions to interrogate Headley and will also start the judicial process soon,” a home ministry official told IANS.
Subramanium, who arrived from a five-day trip early Saturday, told reporters: “All bottlenecks (for access to Headley) have been removed and we have a way forward now. So it’s up to us to operationalise the plan forward.”
He said “the access should be possible” once a team of investigators is ready to interrogate Headley, who has confessed to his role in the 2008 Mumbai attack, which left 166 people dead.
The top Indian law officer was appreciative of the “unstinted cooperation” from the US.
“There has been unstinted cooperation and we have had a very fruitful round of discussions between the American as well as the Indian authorities,” Subramanium said after discussing with officials of the US Justice Department, including his counterpart Eric Holder, on the modalities for interrogating Headley.
The NIA has registered a case against Headley but has not formally charged him in a court or started a judicial process against him.
Subramanium’s visit to the US was to understand the American legal system for India to get access to Headley, a Pakistani-American who had schemed with Pakistan-based LeT terrorist commanders to target India.
Headley admitted before his interrogators that he had several times conducted recce in India for the Mumbai attacks, and was also planning more strikes at vital places in India.
He was arrested from Chicago airport in October last year after which he entered into a plea bargain with the US government and agreed to cooperate and be available to foreign investigators through depositions, video conferencing or letters rogatory.
But he will be spared the death sentence and extradition to India or Denmark, where he is also alleged to have schemed terror attacks.
India wants to question Headley to know more about the LeT’s terror plot christened “Karachi Project”.