Chicago mission missed Headley clues

NEW DELHI: The Indian consulate may have finally traced David Coleman Headley’s visa papers but this has failed to unravel the mystery shrouding the issuance of visa to the terror accused. A number of unanswered questions remain, lending strength to the suspicion that either the Indian consulate in Chicago completely failed to scrutinise Headley’s visa application properly or there is more to it than what appears on the surface.

While the foreign ministry has not announced any official inquiry into the case, it is obvious that the consulate ignored at least three things which could have been really helpful in exposing Headley in the very beginning.

Headley changed his name through an affidavit in a court in Philadelphia and shifted to Chicago just before applying for an Indian visa. His passport when he applied for visa was new and he had not travelled anywhere before going by that passport. Apart from this, the fact that the applicant had a Christian name even as his father had a Muslim one failed to evoke any suspicion in the minds of those who processed the application .

All these developments took place in 2006 just before he applied for visa. In normal circumstances, these are enough reasons to call for an interview with the applicant but this clearly did not happen in the case of Headley.

Indian intelligence agencies now admit that Headley travelled to India as many as five times and after each India visit, he went to Pakistan . It is believed that he met LeT operatives during his stays in Pakistan and discussed ways to carry out the attack in Mumbai. He also handed over information collected from his reconnaisance of targets in Mumbai to his Pakistani handlers.

According to noted security expert B Raman, this could mean only three things. Either the immigration authorities in India were negligent or Headley had another passport which he used to enter Pakistan or he was helped by the ISI in entering Pakistan without any entry on his passport. So far, the government has maintained complete silence on the issue.