Did David Headley and Rana, the alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives, organise the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service for the 26/11 attackers and their handlers?
A month before the attacks, on October 20 and 21, 2008, a Pakistani national named Kharak Singh (a pseudo name) had contacted Callphonex, an internet telephone service provider company in New Jersey, and asked for their VoIP service. The negotiations were done through emails. The IP address of Singh’s email ID was traced to Pakistan.
“Callphonex does not preserve the IP addresses of the computer through which the calls are made. Thus, the Indian investigation team that went to the US had hit a roadblock. However, the voice samples of the callers (handlers) proved that they were in Pakistan,” said a police officer.
Interestingly, the FBI had started questioning the owner of the company within the first few hours of the attacks. “Owner of Callphonex, Nazeer Ahmed, during his deposition in the special court in Mumbai, had said that he was questioned by the FBI on November 27 morning regarding the calls made through their service in India and Pakistan,” added the official.
The officer also said that the numbers which appeared on the mobile phones the terrorists carried started with 00120, which is the ISD Code of the US.
“The investigations done by the FBI would have surely bolstered the agency’s doubts on Headley and Rana, as both were under their scanner months before 26/11. The email ID of Kharak Singh was accessed from 10 different IP addresses, of which two were from Chicago. Co-incidentally, Headley and Rana also resided in Chicago,” added the officer.
