New Delhi:
Now that a US court has formally charged David Coleman Headley in the 26/11 attacks, India will work on his extradition.
Home Ministry officials in India say the National Investigating Agency (NIA) will charge American national Headley for allegedly plotting the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks and seek to bring him to India for trial.
On Tuesday morning, Headley was charged in a Chicago court with six counts of conspiracy and another six counts of aiding and abetting the 26/11 attacks. The US Department of Justice says that while working as an undercover agent for the Pakistani terrorist group, the Laskar-e-Toiba (LeT), Headley conducted extensive surveillance of targets in India for more than two years before the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai. The chargesheet says in his five trips to India between 2006 and 2008, Headley identified the sites of the attacks, took photographs and then returned to Pakistan to share what he had learned. In March 2008, Headley and his co-conspirators discussed potential landing sites for a team of attackers who would arrive by sea in Mumbai .
US law dictates that India will have to wait till after its trial to get any sort of access to Headley. Once that happens, and Indian officials interrogate Headley, the Mumbai police will file a supplementary chargesheet in the 26/11 case currently being heard in a Mumbai court. Intelligence officials are trying to uncover any contacts Headley had in India, and whether he was involved in blasts in cities like Bangalore and Ahmedabad.
Headley's extradition will not be easy, despite a treaty signed by America and India in 1999. He has to be held accountable for aiding and abetting the murder of US citizens in the 26/11 attacks, and in other foreign terror plots. This is the first major case of a US national carrying out a terror plot outside the US. As an American at the centre of an international terrorism plot, Headley 's profile is very troubling for US authorities, who have been concerned about a growing threat at home from radicalised American-Muslims.
The Assistant Attorney General for National Security has promised that the US will work with India. "This case serves as a reminder that the terrorist threat is global in nature and requires constant vigilance at home and abroad. We continue to share leads developed in this investigation with our foreign and domestic law enforcement partners as we work together on this important matter," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
Headley is reportedly cooperating with the FBI. This raises hopes that India will be able to get bottom of the conspiracy against Mumbai.