Intercepted phone conversations and e-mail messages have revealed that there was a large cast of famous figures who were on the hit-list.
Intercepted phone conversations and e-mail messages accessed by the US investigation agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have revealed that there was a large cast of famous figures who were on the hit-list of suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba member Tahawwur Hussain Rana and David Coleman Headley. Among the people with whom the two were in communication is someone identified only as Individual A.
Rahul Bhatt, son of veteran filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, has been asked not to leave Mumbai without first informing the National Investigation Agency of his travel plans as his name has been linked to the suspected plotters of terror strikes. Rahul, Mumbai-based gym instructor, had reportedly spent time with Headley during his visit to Mumbai just days before the attack of November 26 last year.
FBI documents reveal that in an email on July 8, 2009, Headley told Individual A of a ‘new investment’ and said, “I think when we get a chance we should revisit our last location again and say hi to Rahul.” Individual A replied, “To see Rahul is a good idea; … work for you there too. Matters are good enough to move forward...” There is suspicion that the ‘work’ might have referred to the Mumbai attacks.
Many names have cropped up in conversations between the men held by the FBI. A project codenamed the ‘Mickey Mouse Project’, a strike on the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that carried the 12 controversial cartoons lampooning Islam and Prophet Mohammed in 2005, was being planned. The cartoons had raised a storm of protest across the Muslim world.
The men allegedly planned to kill Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of the newspaper, and Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist. Among others on the hit-list is author Sherry Jones, whose book Jewel of Medina, a fictionalised account of the life of Aisha, one of the wives of Prophet Mohammed, also was the subject of controversy.
The document obtained from the FBI states that on October 29, 2008, Headley posted a message to the Yahoo group, ‘abdalians’ (from Cadet College Hasan Abdal, a military school in Pakistan’s Punjab, to which Rana and some other members of the gang belonged).
The message read: “Everything is not a joke. We are not rehearsing a skit on Saturday Night Live. Making fun of Islam is making fun of Rasoosallah (messenger of Allah, peace be on him)...call me old-fashioned, but I feel disposed towards violence towards the offending parties, be they cartoonists from Denmark or Sherry Jones or Irshad Manji (a Canadian feminist who seeks to make homosexual orientation acceptable in Islam)...they never started debates with folks who slandered our Prophet, they took violent action...”
The FBI reveals that the men had also, in a message sent in December 2008, mentioned the name of Lady Naipaul, who until her marriage to VS Naipaul, was a Pakistani journalist who wrote columns in the name of Nadira Alvi. She is also the sister of Amir Faisal Alvi, a retired Pakistani General who was killed in November 2008. soumya menon
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