Chicago:
For most of this week, the case of David Headley's visa papers created much confusion - were the terror suspect's documents missing from the Chicago Consulate which granted Headley his five-year multiple-entry visa to India in 20007? The papers have been found now in the record room at the Chicago Consulate and are being sent to India.
On Thursday, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor told the media that Headley's documents were missing, even as the Chicago Consul General, Ashok Kumar Attri, told NDTV that he had not reported the papers missing to the union government.
"It takes time to dig through thousands of them to find a particular application. It has been found and it has been looked at. But let's face it. The important issue is not whether he got a visa or not. We know he got a visa. He is an American citizen born in Washington DC. It would have been unusual for us to deny him a visa. So he got a visa," Tharoor said.
He added: "We know he came here. What we need to know is much more about what he did and what the consequences were for the well being of the Indians of what he did. So let's not focus obsessively on what is essentially marginalia... At least we are pleased to say that eventually, the papers were found."
But far more important is what he did when he came to this country and that's what investigations are looking at, Tharoor said.
Other than Tharoor, government officials were cautious on record, neither confirming nor denying what everyone wanted to know: had India lost or misplaced documents that could be vital in the investigation of the 26/11 attacks?
Headley, a US national who left Pakistan with his mother as a teenager, was arrested in Chicago by the FBI in October. The charges against him in America include helping to plan and execute the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.
India's National Investigation Agency believes Headley's visa papers could help them retrace who he met during his nine trips to India in the last few years.
He allegedly took photographs and videos of the four sites that would later come under siege by Pakistani terrorists.
Headley's original visa application form is dated June 30, 2006, and this got him a business visa for one year. In 2007, his visa was renewed for five years.
Indian intelligence officials are unhappy that so far, America has not allowed them to meet Headley. America has also said that it's "too premature" to discuss Headley's possible extradition to India after his US trial is completed.
India is worried about whether
- Headley was originally a CIA agent who switched sides and then planned the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). NDTV has reported extensively on whether Headley started out working for the Americans. These reports have been brought up in Parliament, with CPM MP Brinda Karat asking why America is not allowing India access to Headley.
- What's more worrying for India is that America's surveillance of Headley began in September last year, before the 26/11 attacks. Yet, no information on him was shared with India. America clearly had specific intelligence reports about the possibility of Mumbai hotels being targeted by terrorists - the Taj was mentioned in the warning passed onto India. But Headley did not figure in this alert.
- Worse, India was not told about Headley even when he visited the country in March this year, supposedly to plan a new round of terror attacks. Instead, America waited till after Headley's arrest to share intelligence on him.
- Sources say India suspects that Headley was enrolled as a spy after he was arrested for smuggling heroin in 1988. Did America then use him to infiltrate Pakistan's narcotics underworld? And did Headley use that as a cover to start working for Pakistani terrorists against India? Questions that now have India questioning whether America has shared everything it knows about a man named Daood Gilani who morphed into David Coleman Headley.