New Delhi:
The government has given its sanction to chargesheet Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley in connection with the 26/11 case.
Besides Headley, the Ministry of Home Affairs has also given the National Investigation Agency (NIA) the nod to prosecute his accomplice, Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Al Qaeda operative Ilyas Kashmiri among others.
Sajid Malik, handler of Headley, and Abdul Rehman Hashmi will also be named in the chargesheet besides two officers Major Iqbal and Major Samir Ali, believed to be working for
Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), sources have said.
The NIA had registered a case against 50-year-old Headley and Rana on November 12, 2009.
Headley has already pleaded guilty in a US court to laying the groundwork for the deadly attacks that killed 166 people. The Pakistani-American LeT operative had been interrogated by the NIA last year where he had given extensive details of his nine visits to India including planning an escape route for the terrorists involved in the attacks.
Rana, who Headley testified against in a Chicago court this year, was running an immigration consultancy firm and is accused of letting the latter use his business as a cover for two terror plots, including the Mumbai attack.
Both the accused are at present in custody of US authorities and the NIA has only got a limited access to Headley, who had entered into a plea bargain with the Americans to
escape harsh sentence.
(With PTI inputs)