Mumbai, December 02: A former Pakistan Army Major, who has joined the ranks of Lashker-e-Taiba(LeT), is emerging as one of the masterminds of the Mumbai carnage and was in direct touch with arrested US terror suspect David Headley.
The former Armyman identified as Sajid Mir has turned out to be Headley’s handler in Pakistan and was tasking the American to learn praying like Jews so that he could conduct a recce of Jewish Centre Nariman House in Mumbai and the premises of a newspaper in Denmark, official sources said here today.
The sources said Mir has been arrested in Pakistan but this could not be independently verified.
The 48-year-old American-born Headley, who was arrested by the FBI sleuths at airport in Chicago in October this year for allegedly plotting to carryout terror strikes in India and Denmark, had told his investigators that he had learnt praying like Jews at the instance of Mir, who was now emerging as one of the mastermind of the terror strikes in Mumbai last November in which 166 people were killed.
Mir, according to the sources, asked Headley t o learn praying like Jews as this could help him to target Flemming Rose, a cartoonist of Danish newspaper besides helping him in conducting a reccee of the Nariman House, a place which was attacked by LeT terrorists on November 26.
Chicago court to hear Rana’s bail plea
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, one of the two US-based terror suspects arrested in October on charges of plotting attacks in India on behalf of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), will appear in a Chicago court later Wednesday with hopes he will be set free on bond.
Rana, a Canadian citizen who was born in Pakistan and operated an immigration service in Chicago, has been in custody since Oct 18 when Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents arrested him.
He was arrested days after his co-defendant David Coleman Headley, 49, was held by FBI Oct 3 for allegedly plotting to launch terror attacks on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed.
—Agencies