By IANS,
Chicago: The National Defence College (NDC) in New Delhi, India’s premier defence studies institution, is on the terrorist hit-list as 26/11 mastermind Illiyas Kashmiri believes this can eliminate more of the country’s military top brass, a key plotter of the Mumbai terror attack has testified.
On the second day of his testimony before a Chicago court Tuesday, Pakistani American David Coleman Headley testified that within a few months of the Mumbai attack, Kashmiri asked him to go to India again to do surveillance of the NDC.
Kashmiri told him that NDC was a prestigious Indian institution that teaches senior level military offices.
His handler “Pasha” told him that if “we were able to conduct” an attack on the NDC, then “we will be able to kill more brigadiers than Pakistan has done in the four wars” with India.
Kashmiri also wanted him to do surveillance of Chhabad House Jewish community centres all over India as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) leadership wanted retaliation for Israeli attacks on the Gaza strip.
When accompanied by Pasha, he went to see Kashmiri in Waziristan in February 2009, he had emerged as a “surveillance expert” among LeT circles and “thus a key element of the planning of the terrorist attack,” Headley said.
“Kashmiri asked me to return to India. He said that his leadership was very upset about the recent Israeli strike on the Gaza strip and (thus) wanted retaliation,” Headley said in response to a question.
On the way back he was given a list of Chhabad houses in India by Pasha.