Shiv Sena founder-patriarch Bal Thackeray was on the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s hit list and the killer assigned for the task slipped out of police custody, revealed David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani-American operative of the terrorist outfit, on Thursday.
The 56-year-old Headley or Daood Gilani, who was arrested in Chicago for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai carnage, disclosed via video link from a US prison that he had visited the Sena headquarters twice during sorties to India to select possible targets for the LeT.
“I believe an attempt was made on the life of the Shiv Sena chief ... The man who made the attempt had escaped from police custody,” Headley told the special court of additional sessions judge GA Sanap.
Shiv Sena founder-patriarch Bal Thackeray was on the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s hit list and the killer assigned for the task slipped out of police custody, revealed David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani-American operative of the terrorist outfit, on Thursday.
The 56-year-old Headley or Daood Gilani, who was arrested in Chicago for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai carnage, disclosed via video link from a US prison that he had visited the Sena headquarters twice during sorties to India to select possible targets for the LeT.
“I believe an attempt was made on the life of the Shiv Sena chief ... The man who made the attempt had escaped from police custody,” Headley told the special court of additional sessions judge GA Sanap.
He told the court on Thursday that he was following instructions from Sajid Mir, his LeT supervisor in Pakistan.
Headley revealed on Wednesday how the US financed his trip to Pakistan and claimed that he had donated about Pakistani Rs 70 lakh to the LeT till 2006, two years before the Mumbai attacks.
He dismissed reports that he received money from the LeT. “I never received money from LeT ... This is complete nonsense. I gave funds to LeT ... throughout the period I was associated with them. My last donation was in 2006,” he told the court.
He said after his arrest in 1998, the Drug Enforcement Authority (DEA) of the US had financed his trip.
The terrorist, who faced conviction twice in 1988 and 1998 for alleged drug smuggling before the Mumbai siege, had indulged in criminal activities and violated his plea bargain agreements with the US government, the court was told.
Courtesy: HT
