Mumbai, November 16: Making it clear that no clean chit has been given to anyone so far in the Headley-Rana terror case, Government on Sunday said the probe to complete the duo’s trail in India will take four to six weeks.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function in New Delhi, Union Home Secretary G K Pillai said, “Investigations are on, it will take us at least, I will put it as something between four to six weeks, to complete the probe. Once that investigation is completed, we will know the links.”
In reply to a specific question on Rana’s movements, Pillai said he had visited Kochi in Kerala and the probe to find out what he did while in the city is on.
Kerala Director General of Police Jacob Punnoose had said, “a man named Tahawwur Hussain Rana had stayed in a hotel in Kochi on 16th November.”
He had also stated that the state police had not received any official communication on the matter from the Central security agencies.
Pillai said a team of National Investigating Agency, which is probing the trails of Headley and Rana in the country as also if they had played any role in the Mumbai terror attack last year or the serial blasts between 2006 to 2008, would soon be visiting Kerala.
He said security agencies probing the Headley terror case have not given a clean chit to anyone, including filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt’s son Rahul, who had an acquaintance with the US national, arrested for plotting attacks in India at Pakistan- based terror group Lashker-e-Taiba’s behest.
“We have not given clean chit to anyone. Investigation is still on,” he said.
The NIA has formed several teams in Mumbai as well as in other states and started questioning several people to trace the footsteps of David Headley and his accomplice Tahawwar Hussain Rana, in India as new leads suggested that they had visited Kerala.
The officials, who arrived in Mumbai on Saturday, will examine and procure as well as retrieve CCTV footages, in case they were deleted, from various hotels of the metropolis where the duo had visited.
Asked about police failure to get an inkling about the plot while the two were in Mumbai to do a recce ahead of the Mumbai strikes, Pillai said, “Primarily they had come before 26th November, 2008, that is why.”
—Agencies