Ishrat Jahan was LeT suicide bomber, Headley tells Court

PTI
MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 11

In a significant claim, Pakistani- American terrorist David Coleman Headley today said that Ishrat Jahan –who was killed in an alleged fake encounter in 2004 in Gujarat–was actually a suicide bomber of Lashkar-e-Taiba terror outfit. The disclosure is likely to ignite a fresh row around the controversial encounter.
Testifying via video-link from the US, Headley spilled the beans on the 19-year-old Mumbra girl and picked up her name when quizzed by Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam about a “botched up operation” mentioned to him (Headley) by LeT commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi.
Headley told the Court that Lakhvi had mentioned to him about a “botched-up operation” conducted in India by another LeT operative Muzammil Butt where a female member of the terror outfit was killed.
Prodded by Nikam to elaborate on the operation and the members involved in it, Headley said, “(I was told) It was a shootout with police in which a (female) suicide bomber was killed.”
To which the prosecutor prompted three names of which Headley picked up Jahan before telling the Court that “there is a female wing in LeT and one Abu Aiman’s mother headed it.”
Four persons- Ishrat Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an encounter with Gujarat Police on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.
The city crime branch had then said that those killed in the encounters were LeT terrorists and had landed in Gujarat to kill then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The CBI, which took over probe from the Gujarat High Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT), had filed charge sheet in August 2013 saying that the encounter was fake and executed in the joint operation by the city crime branch and Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB).
In further disclosures, the 55-year-old, who recently turned approver in the 26/11 case, also told the Court that that LeT operative Muzammil Butt was the head of his (Headley’s) group before Sajid Mir.
He told the Court that a person, whom he identified as Abu Dujuna introduced him to Muzammil.
Headley said that he and Muzammil had once visited Kashmir to fight against the Indian troops.
Earlier in the day, Headley exposed how ISI and LeT majorly funded terror operations in India and financed him from time to time and that Pakistan native Tahawwur Rana visited Mumbai before the terror strikes in November 2008, which left 166 people dead and 309 injured.

BJP demands apology from Sonia, Rahul, Sena for action   

The BJP on Thursday demanded that Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi apologise after Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist-turned-approver David Coleman Headley said Ishrat Jahan was a member of the terror outfit.
“These Congress leaders should apologise to the nation and to the heroes who killed LeT terrorist Ishrat Jahan and her three accomplices,” BJP leader Shrikant Sharma said here.
Ishrat Jahan was allegedly killed in a staged gun battle on June 15, 2004, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in Gujarat with Deputy Inspector General D.G. Vanzara, who was later jailed in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh case, leading the police team.
“Instead of praising the brave policemen, questions were raised on their sincerity and they were put behind bars by the then Congress government. Now the mask has come off their faces,” he added.
Sharma said the Congress hatched a conspiracy and tried to politicise terror in order to defame the Bharatiya Janata Party and the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi.
“The previous UPA government at the Centre questioned the police action and politicised it instead of appreciating the police for killing them. It was a hate conspiracy against the BJP leaders and the Headley’s claim has exposed the people who objected to the encounter,” the BJP leader said.
He also alleged that the Congress leadership tried to influence the National Investigative Agency and Central Bureau of Investigation probes into the encounter.
“Several investigative agencies and officers also termed Ishrat Jahan a terrorist but the then UPA government ignored the fact and misused investigative agencies to link Modi and the BJP with the episode,” he said.
Earlier, the Congress on Thursday questioned attempts to use Headley’s court testimony to justify the “fake” Ishrat Jahan encounter which it said were “not permissible by law”.
Sena demands action: PTI adds from Mumbai that seizing on Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley’s claim that Ishrat Jahan was an “LeT operative”, Shiv Sena today said all those who had supported her should now be booked and action taken against them.
“Headley has only repeated what he had first said in Chicago. At that time, some people made her (Ishrat) a ‘Jhansi ki rani’ and considered her a martyr. At that time we had said that these people will fall flat on their faces and the same thing has happened,” Sena MP Sanjay Raut said.
“People who had supported her then should now be booked and action taken against them. Even the LeT has said that she was one of their operatives. A terrorist is a terrorist. There is nothing like a fake encounter with regards to a terrorist.
What the Gujarat government and police did was right,” Raut said.
Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson in Maharashtra Al-Nasser Zakaria said till now nothing concrete has been found against Ishrat Jahan.
“Nothing concrete has been found against Ishrat Jahan till now. Government agencies should not blindly believe Headley, who is a terrorist himself. Let the Courts decide what her background was. But, nobody should be targeted on the basis of their religion,” he said.