Hotel owner booked under foreigners act.
On Holi day in March this year, the religious town of Pushkar in Ajmer district of Rajasthan had an unholy visitor. Investigators have learnt that suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley stayed in a hotel in the town in March.
The hotel where Headley stayed is opposite an Israeli religious centre. In Pune too, Headley stayed in a hotel close to a Jewish religious centre. The 10 Pakistani terrorists who attacked Mumbai last November also targeted Nariman House, a Jewish religious centre, in Colaba.
Investigators believe Headley and his associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana were given the task of gathering details of Jewish religious centres across the country.
According to Kailash Parashar, owner of Hotel Oasis, Headley’s movements were suspicious. He tried to conceal his identity by giving his name as just ‘David Colman’ in the hotel register. “David gave a copy of his original US passport but again changed one digit of the number,” Parashar said. According to the register entry, Headley had arrived from Delhi and planned to proceed to Mumbai.
Parashar recalled that though the hotel had several rooms available, Headley insisted number 17, which faces the Israeli centre. The room cost just Rs500 a day. He hardly made eye contact with hotel staff and mostly kept to himself. “He would mostly be seen with his head lowered,” Parashar told DNA on telephone.
“It was Holi when David came to our hotel,” he said. “As most of my staff was on leave, I personally attended on him. He check-in time was 3pm on March 11. On March 13 at 5am he checked out.”
Parashar saw reports about Headley many times on TV but never recognised him until he was approached by sleuths of the National Investigative Agency (NIA). “When David stayed in our hotel, he had a thick beard and moustache,” he said. “When the intelligence people [sic] showed me his pictures I recognised him.”
Parashar isn’t getting away easily. He has been booked under section 1967/14 of the Foreigners Act because he failed to submit a form that has to be filled by foreign visitors.
“Parashar says that as it was a holiday and the office was closed, he threw the form inside through the door,” said Jagdish Bairva, assistant superintendent of police, Ajmer. “But when we asked him to show the receipt of the submission, he was unable to produce it.”
(With Binoy Valsan in Jaipur)
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