FBI agents grilled Mohammad Ajmal Amir, the lone Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist to be captured alive after the 26/11 attacks, for over nine hours to ascertain his role.
MUMBAI: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents grilled Mohammad Ajmal Amir, the lone Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist to be captured alive after the November 26 terror attacks in Mumbai, for over nine hours recently to ascertain his role and gather information about his handlers in Pakistan.
The agents, who have been camping in Mumbai for over three weeks, questioned Ajmal, who is in the custody of the Mumbai Police, a source said.
During the questioning session, that lasted for nine hours at a stretch, the FBI agents asked the captured terrorist minor details about his native village, including the lanes and by-lanes of the area. Ajmal hails from Ukkad area of Faridkot district in Pakistan.
Ajmal was also asked to explain the area where his training took place and name the people who trained him in arms as well as those who brainwashed him, the source said.
Ajmal, 21, told his interrogators that he had started his career as a petty thief in Lahore, where he was staying with his brother after dropping out of school in 2000. Thereafter, he shuttled between his brother's home and his parental house till 2005.
He had had a fight with his family and left home to start work as a daily wage labourer but later joined a small-time criminal gang. Here, he and one of his friends came across some Jamaat-ud-Daawa members while they were buying arms from a market in Rawalpindi.
After some deliberation, Ajmal said, both decided to join the outfit thinking the training would further their criminal career. During training, the films on India's alleged atrocities in Kashmir and fiery lectures by preachers, including Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, led him to believe that the Lashkar's cause was worth giving his life for.
Later, Lashkar commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi promised that Ajmal's family would be rewarded with Rs1.5 lakh for his 'sacrifice'.
The FBI agents, with the help of the description given by Ajmal, prepared some sketches of those who brainwashed him as well as his trainers. They also marked all the places he spoke of on maps, the source said.
The FBI team came to Mumbai on December 1 after registering a case in the US. As per US laws, the FBI has to probe the death or torture of any American citizen outside the US and submit a charge sheet. Six US nationals and at least one British national were killed by terrorists in this case.
The FBI has already taken DNA samples of all nine Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists killed in the 60-hour siege of three South Mumbai locations. They have also found that the integrated circuits used in the explosive devices brought by the terrorists to Mumbai were similar to those used in Afghanistan.
A source associated with the investigation into the terror strikes said the DNA samples had been preserved by the FBI investigators to ascertain if they matched anyone in their data bank or were somehow connected with persons killed during US operations in Afghanistan.
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