New Delhi, May 31: An interesting mix of young officers from the National Investigation Agency ( NIA) makes up the team that will interrogate David Coleman Headley in the US, along with a law officer.
The team will be lead by inspector- general Loknath Behera. A 1985- batch IPS officer of the Kerala cadre, Behera is a crack investigator with a long innings in the CBI. Behera will be accompanied by two young SPs — Sajid Farid Shapoo and Swayam Prakash Pani.
Shapoo, 35, belongs to Jammu and Kashmir but is a 1998- batch IPS officer from the Madhya Pradesh cadre. He is well- versed in Urdu and Arabic and is cred- By Aman Sharma in New Delhi ited for wiping out the Gadaria dacoit gang in Madhya Pradesh.
Pani, 33, a 2000- batch IPS officer from the J& K cadre, is the youngest and is considered an expert on understanding terror networks of the Lashkar- e- Tayyeba and other groups after his stints as the SP of Srinagar and Kulgam.
The three officers were among the first recruitments to the NIA last February and were handpicked by the home ministry for the job, a source said.
Most of the questions at Headley could be fielded by Behera, who had cracked and probed some big cases in the CBI during his decade- long stint at the agency. These include the 1999 Graham Staines murder in Orissa, the Purulia arms drop case, the Babri Masjid demolition case, the murder of poetess Madhumita Shukla in Uttar Pradesh, the Sanjay Ghosh abduction, the IC- 817 hijacking, the Satyendra Dubey murder and the Haren Pandya assassination.
Though sources in the home ministry confirmed on Saturday that the team will fly out for the US on Sunday night, utmost secrecy was being maintained over when exactly the team will leave for Chicago. Headley will be available between June 1 and 15 for the questioning.
—-Agencies