Mumbai, Feb. 9: The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre was on the list of targets for the 26/11 terror attack, David Coleman Headley told a Mumbai court today after his deposition had ended and all the lawyers and FBI and external affairs ministry representatives had left the courtroom.
"My Lord, I forgot to tell you that I was also specifically asked to do a reconnaissance of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai as a possible high-value target. I did that too. Yes," Headley said.
The revelation came when the judge's secretary was reading out the day's judicial recordings to Headley. By then, almost everyone had left and the courtroom was empty but for the judge, the judicial clerks and some police and security officials.
A Pakistani-origin American agent who turned rogue and became a Lashkar-e-Toiba operative, Headley did not say why the BARC was not attacked on November 26, 2008. He had conducted surveillance for the Mumbai attack and is deposing over video from the US, where he is serving a 35-year jail term in a terror case.
During the second day's deposition today, special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam had prodded him to name all the targets in Mumbai that the Lashkar had initially picked. After much prodding, Headley mentioned the state police headquarters, the naval air base in Colaba and the Siddhivinayak temple.
"They were very keen on the Siddhivinayak temple and some other high-value targets but they did not work out due to logistical issues. Sajid Mir (Headley's handler in the Lashkar) had specifically asked me to make a video of that place," he said, without explaining why these were dropped.
Headley said that when he surveyed and videographed Mumbai, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus - the railway station that is still more famous by its old name Victoria Terminus - was not on the list of targets. It was originally surveyed to be a place from which surviving gunmen could escape. "I photographed CST from outside, I did not go inside," he said.
Of the 163 people who died in the four-day attack across multiple sites, the maximum number killed at one place were at CST - 58.
Headley also revealed an aborted Lashkar plan to attack a conference of defence scientists to be held at the Taj Mahal Hotel, which became one of the targets of the 26/11 attacks.
"When I stayed with my wife Faiza in Taj Mahal Hotel in April-May 2007, I had done a reconnaissance of the hotel's second floor and convention halls for this purpose," he said.
The plan collapsed because of "innumerable reasons", Headley said in his deposition, citing logistical problems and unavailability of personnel. It is not clear when the conference was scheduled.
Headley, who turned approver last December and was deposing before the court of sessions judge G.A. Sanap, said he had been given the job of luring and recruiting spies from the Indian Army to work for Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence.
Indian link
Headley today named two Indians who had helped him on his reconnaissance trips to Mumbai. Basheer Sheikh's name came up when prosecutor Nikam asked a direct question. Sheikh was a Mumbai-based friend of Pakistani military doctor Tawahhur Rana who helped him get an Indian visa in the US, Headley said.
"He was the one who picked me up from Mumbai airport - he was known to Rana. Rana told me he would pick me up. I did not know Basheer before coming to India," Headley said, going on to detail how Basheer had booked him at Mumbai's Outram Hotel during his visit to the city on September 14, 2006.
Headley would stay in Outram Hotel many times after this. His third wife Faiza Outollah - a Moroccan national who is said to have outed his terror links to the authorities - also stayed there once while visiting Headley in Mumbai.
Rana had described Basheer to him - "his appearance and the colour of the clothes he would be wearing" - so that Headley could identify him. "Basheer took me in a taxi from the airport. He then took me to Hotel Outram, where he had arranged for my stay," he told the court.
This was the first and the last time that he met Basheer, he said.
Headley did not make it clear whether Basheer knew what he was doing in Mumbai or had any terror links.
The other Indian he named today was Meera Kulkarni of the Breach Candy neighbourhood in Mumbai in whose house he intermittently stayed as a paying guest during his various visits. Again, he did not clarify whether Kulkarni was aware of the purpose of Headley's visits.
Intelligence sources said that Headley had told US investigators about Basheer in 2014.
"He has told US investigators in a recorded statement that Basheer had helped him conduct a reconnaissance of the German Bakery and the Osho Ashram in Pune. This was in 2008 and 2009 when he conducted surveys of possible attack sites in Delhi and Pune," a source said.
Although Headley told the court today that he had met Basheer only on his first visit, the intelligence source said he had given the US agencies a different version.
"His statement to US agencies reveals that whatever material Headley collected, he dropped it off at Basheer's home in Mumbai. He also visited Basheer's home to collect the material and some of his luggage on his return to Mumbai from Pune in 2009," the source said.
Intelligence and prosecution sources say they have a fair idea about Basheer's identity.
"Headley has told the US agencies that Basheer had informed him about his plan to immigrate to Canada and that the immigration process was almost complete. He said he planned to leave India soon," said the intelligence officer, who claimed Basheer was in Canada now.
A little over two months after the November 2008 attack, Mumbai's then police commissioner Hassan Gafoor had said the gunmen had 10 to 14 Indian collaborators. Gafoor died after a heart attack in 2012, but the prosecution claims that information collected painstakingly by police, intelligence agencies and investigators in India as well as France, the UK, Germany and the US has provided ammunition. "Some of it should be corroborated by Headley during his deposition," a source said.
