The charge sheet was a work of hours of efforts and meticulous investigation, many of which were carried out for the first time in India.
New Delhi: The 21 January U.S. Supreme Court order to extradite Mumbai attack accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana came despite his lawyers raising every viable defence, all of which failed to sway the judges. This was largely due to the airtight charge-sheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in December 2011, which laid the foundation for a strong legal case by both Indian and U.S. prosecutors to secure Rana’s extradition—likely to happen 14 years later.
The said charge sheet, which was a work of hours of efforts and meticulous investigation, many of which were carried out for the first time in India, was done by the first Inspector General (IG) of the agency, Sanjeev Singh, a 1987 batch Bihar cadre Indian Police Service officer, who passed away in 2020 at a relatively young age of 60 years.
Official sources familiar with the case, including those who joined the NIA after Singh’s tenure ended in August 2016, told The Sunday Guardian that it was due to his efforts that Rana will now face justice for his crimes.
Indian investigators were able to convince their US counterparts of the role of Rana in this case and were able to answer every single doubt and question that were raised by them before the case moved to the court.
Every charge in the charge sheet filed by Singh was backed by undeniable proof and evidence.
It was Singh, who after completing his investigation in the case, for the first time in India’s history had named two serving Pakistani Army officers in its charge sheet. Singh had named two serving army officers of Pakistan, Major Iqbal and Major Sameer Ali for their role in the heinous crime.
Similarly in this marathon investigation, which was being watched by the world, the NIA under Singh examined more than 300 witnesses. Singh had found that it was Major Iqbal, a Pakistan intelligence officer (PIO) as the man who imparted surveillance training to David Coleman Headley, one of the main accused in the case. He also provided financial assistance to him and collected the video surveillance tape that Headley had made before the attack.
In order to make a full proof case against the accused, Singh had approached the software giant Microsoft and Hotmail to have details of the conversation between David Coleman Headley and his Pakistani handlers. It also took assistance from the United State department of justice which it readily got.
Singh found, and was able to prove, that it was Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the Canadian citizen who served as a doctor in the Pakistani Army, who provided logistics, financial assistance to Headley who was entrusted with the task of doing a reconnaissance of the predetermined target and look for other targets.
Apart from Rana and Headley, Singh had named Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who is the chief of Jamaatud Dawa (JD), Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi the founding father of Lashkar-e-taiba (LeT), who is also the chief of military wing of LeT, Sajid Majid, LeT terrorist and handler of Headley, Huzi commander Illyas Kashmiri, and Adbur Rehman Hashim Syed, a retired major from Pakistan Army, who later joined 313 brigade of HuJI as the accused in the case.
Singh found that the initial plan to attack Mumbai involved 12 men, which was reduced to 10. These terrorists were trained in Muzaffarabad, after which they were sent to Muridke, near Lahore for final indoctrination.
According to Singh’s investigation, two unsuccessful attempts to attack Mumbai were also made before 26/11. On 20 September 2008, the boat carrying the 10 terrorists sank after hitting some rocks. A few weeks later the same group of 10 fired on an Indian fishing boat to hijack it but it fled, which led to the attack finally taking place on 26/11.
In his charge sheet, backed by voluminous annexures, the Patna born Singh proved that Headley visited India nine times and made 2,516 calls and called up 557 different numbers to plan and execute the massacre.
Significantly, Singh found that Headley was staying in Pakistan since 1999 along with his stepfather and stepbrothers. One of his brothers, Danyal Gilani at the time was posted as information officer in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) of Pakistan. When their father, Jenal Salim Gilani died, the then Pakistani PM Yousuf Gilani visited them to offer his condolences.
According to Singh’s charge sheet, Headley used an American express credit card—371721370186001 for most of his expenses that were incurred during his stay in India. He bought a Vodafone mobile on 15 February 2007—9920***935—through which he was in constant touch with his handlers.
The first of his many email addresses that he used, Singh found, was opened (id: immigrationusa) through a Reliance Web World outlet in Heera Panna.
The more than 110-page charge sheet by Singh, excluding the annexures, also revealed that in February 2008, Major Iqbal gave a Sony Ericsson camera to Headley to shoot videos of the locations that were on the list to be targeted.
Headley used many different email address for communicating with his accomplice which included dark_pitman@yahoo.com,attorney1dave@yahoo.com,impervious2pain@yahoo.com,oblivious2pain@yahoo.com,rangers1dave@yahoo.com,gulati22@hotmail.com,haidergilani1@hotmail.com,sajjidiyas1@yahoo.com, khurramharoon1@yahoo.com, back4burton@gmail.com, daoodgilani@yahoo.com, to make sure that his conversation is not traced.Haidergillani1@hotmail.com was his most preferred email.
Hussain Rana was using tahawwur@yahoo.com, immigration@ameritechi.net, move.monie@yahoo.com.WhileSajidMajid was interacting with get.me.some.book@gmail.com.
NIA has also submitted in the charges sheet that Major Iqbal was available on the Pakistani number 3214528652. While Major Sameer was using 3445257300. Major Ali’s email address was jchadher@yahoo.com and chowdharykhan@yahoo.com while Major Sameer was on chsameerali@yahoo.com.
Using call and other records, Singh found that in July 2008 Headley did a recce of Hotel Taj, naval installations in Mumbai, Mantralaya, Sidhi Vinayak temple, Mumbai stock exchange, office of El-AL airlines, Chabad house in Mumbai and the Blue synagogue. He also did reconnaissance of Chabad house in Jaipur, Delhi and the National Defence College, Delhi.
He also found that just a few months before the Mumbai attack took place, Hafiz Mohammad, in one of the meetings between the two, told Headley to “teach” Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray a “lesson”.
In October 2008, Singh’s investigations revealed the plan to carry out a terror attack in Denmark was also discussed (because of the cartoon controversy related to Prophet Mohammad). Headley wanted to name it “Mickey Mouse” project which was changed to ‘Northern project’ by Major Sajid.