Monday, July 5, 2010

Headley claims Ishrat was Lashkar operative

Ishrat Jahan, the Mumbai girl shot dead by the Gujarat Police in 2004, was a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative, according to 26/11 plotter David Headley.

Headley has told interrogators from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that Ishrat was appointed to cover up for Javed, the commander-in-chief of the Lashkar in India.

Sources in the NIA told Headlines Today that Headley claimed Ishrat was recruited by Muzammil, who is in-charge of the Lashkar's operations in India. He recruited four other women as suicide bombers.

Headley claimed he had been in touch with all the women and often sent them on terror missions.

Ishrat was gunned down along with three others in Ahmedabad in an encounter rife with controversies. The police claimed that the four were Lashkar operatives out on a mission to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

But Ishrat's parents contested the claims, saying their daughter was an ordinary college-going girl from suburban Mumbai. The encounter was alleged to be fake and many Gujarat Police officers, including DIG D.G. Vanzara, were arrested.

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