New Delhi:
Terror suspect David Headley has been charged with plotting the Mumbai attacks and as investigators join the dots, also emerging are links with the Pakistan Army.
Besides a retired major in the Pakistani Army, the FBI is also probing David Headley's links with two serving Pakistan Army majors.
Sources have told NDTV that Pakistan has so far refused access to the officers, identified as ISI operatives. But will India ever get its hands on the man who was among those responsible for the most brazen terror attack on Indian soil?
That scenario looks rather unlikely, and here's the reason why:
According to a report in the
New York Times (
NYT) after being caught trafficking in 1998, Headley - then Daood Gilani - switched sides and went on to work with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In exchange, he got a reduced sentence and according to the NYT even did undercover work in Pakistan.
According to a report in the
Daily Beast, Headley might have been a double agent who turned on the US; Indian investigators have asked FBI how Headley's easy movements in and out of Pakistan were not picked up by US authorities, according to sources.
Also, Daood Gilani adopted the name David Headley to ease travel to countries like India.
But as the
Daily Beast questions, "It is unlikely he gave US intelligence and Homeland Security the slip by simply changing his travelling name to an alias that was already known to US authorities. More probably he did enough to continue to merit the protection of the DEA or had by that time been passed along as a potential asset to another branch of US intelligence.
Given all this, the question now being asked is - whether Headley could strike a similar deal with the US administration this time around. With reports in the US media saying Headley is helping the investigations, a deal of some sort cannot be ruled out entirely.