Officials say ISI’s compartmentalized planning limited contact among operatives, hiding or avoiding local links.
NEW DELHI: One of the primary goals of the questioning of the 64 years old Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a key accused in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, would be to uncover the details about local Indian assets and helpers in India who may have aided Lashkar-E-Taiba and Pakistan’s ISI in the devastating attacks that killed 166 people, a possibility long suspected but never conclusively proven.
Rana was extradited from the United States on 10 April after being arrested in 2009.
Indian officials have consistently argued that the scale of the attacks—targeting iconic sites like Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Taj Mahal Hotel, Oberoi Trident, and Nariman House—required local knowledge or support.
“Such an operation cannot happen without the involvement of locals,” a senior official who was a part of the probe, had told this reporter ten years ago.
Yet, despite extensive investigations, no Indian nationals have been definitively linked to the plot, leaving a critical gap in the case.
“We still don’t know the identity of any locals who may have played even a minor role in the attack, though we’ve long suspected local support. Rana is the only key figure we’ve been able to question so far. Kasab was just a foot soldier, involved only at the final stage,” a senior official told the Sunday Guardian.
The ten terrorists too, it is suspected, got local support while entering Mumbai.
Officials believe the ISI’s compartmentalized approach while planning and executing this attack, where operatives interacted only with a single contact and lacked the full picture, either erased traces of local helpers or prevented their creation. The investigation’s failure to identify local supporters, despite the attack’s massive scale, remains a critical mystery of the 26/11 carnage
However, extracting reliable information from Rana may prove
Rana’s role centred on enabling his associate David Coleman Headley, an American of Pakistani origin, to conduct reconnaissance in Mumbai under the cover of Rana’s immigration business. Headley, who turned approver in the U.S., admitted to scouting targets but provided scant details on local contacts in India who helped him. Investigators are hoping that Rana will shed light on whether Headley worked with Indian-based individuals or sleeper cells during his multiple visits between 2006 and 2008, during which he and Rana exchanged over 230 phone calls. The interrogation of Rana is right now being done by the National Intelligence Agency officials, following which the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing will get involved. A key concern for Indian agencies is interrogating Rana carefully, as any torture allegations could jeopardize future extradition cases.