The Pakistani spy agency ISI has put together a team of Indian jihadis in Karachi, and is waiting to launch them into the country on a terrorist project, alleged terror suspects David Coleman Headley and Mohammad Amjad Khwaja have told their interrogators, reports The Indian Express.
Headley was arrested by the FBI in Chicago in October last year, and is accused of recceing Mumbai and other Indian cities for the Lashkar-e-Toiba as part of the preparations for 26/11. Khwaja, belonging to the Harkat-ul Jihad-i Islami, was arrested on January 18, and is being held in Hyderabad.
Headley has described the “Karachi project” to FBI interrogators, details of which have been shared with New Delhi, sources said. He is believed to have said that both the ISI and the Lashkar have been training Indian nationals in terrorist activities, and using them for anti-India “projects” from time to time.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also been able to unearth significant details about Headley's movements in Pakistan through his e-mail correspondence. Contents of his Gmail account were shared with New Delhi following an official request to Google.
Details of Headley's movements in and out of India, reported in The Indian Express last Thursday, show that he flew into Mumbai from Karachi and returned to the same city twice over the last three years — once in late 2006, and then again in April 2008.
Evidence of the ISI-Lashkar Karachi project has also come independently from HuJI man Khwaja, who was picked up by Chennai Police on his return from Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport.
Top sources said Khwaja has told his interrogators that a large number of highly-indoctrinated jihadi Indian nationals have been housed in the Pakistani port city.
Khwaja is understood to have revealed that he met alleged Indian Mujahideen terrorists Amir Raza Khan and Riyaz Bhatkal in Karachi, both of whom are staying in the city's Defence enclave, probably under the ISI's protection.
Khwaja, who visited Mecca and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia before he was arrested, is believed to have confessed to planning the October 2005 attack on the STF office in Hyderabad, but has been silent on his suspected role in the Mecca Masjid and Gokul Chat blasts in 2007.
Khwaja is learnt to have provided details of HuJI operations in Bangladesh, and the outfit's coordination with Lashkar leaders based in Manshera and Muridke in Pakistan. The Hyderabad Police are expected to approach the court for permission to carry out a narco test on him shortly.
Meanwhile, a team of officers from Bangalore are also expected to interrogate Khwaja in connection with his revelations on Riaz Bhatkal, who, along with his brother Iqbal, are believed to have joined hands with hardline elements from the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) to carry out the bombings attributed to the Indian Mujahideen between 2006 and 2008. Much of the planning and preparation for these attacks took place at the port town of Bhatkal near Mangalore.
Khwaja is of interest to the Karnataka Police also on account of his alleged interaction with Amir Raza Khan, the gangster-turned-jihadi who is believed to have played a crucial supporting role in Indian Mujahideen operations.
