David Coleman Headley planned to take famous film producer Mahesh Bhatt's son Rahul Bhatt to Pakistan's tribal areas of Waziristan to enable Lashkar-e-Taiba to kidnap him for ransom, co-accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana's Defence Attorney Charles Smith alleged while cross examining Headley in the ongoing Mumbai Attack case in the US District Court here.
During the cross examination, it came to light that co-accused Tahawwur Rana even wanted to make a Bollywood film with Rahul Bhatt in which Rahul was supposed to be an action star. Headley replied that he wanted to take him there as a tourist. "I even thought that I could introduce him to Sajjid who can work on him subsequently," Headley stated. "Lashkar does not kill a guest," Headley responded adding that nothing would have happened to Rahul in the tribal area. Defence Attorney trashed Headley's response stating that kidnapping for ransom by terrorist groups is rampant in Pakistan.
Defence Attorney cited transcript from Headley's FBI interrogation where in he had stated in November 2009 that LeT is kidnapping people to raise funds. Headley during his testimony stated that Bollywood is currently amongst the five targets of attack on the ISI and LeT list. The other four included Somnath Temple in Gujarat, the Shiv Sena office in Mumbai, Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005, and Mumbai Airport.
Headley stated that LeT's Sajid and ISI's Major Iqbal knew about Rana's plan to make a movie with Rahul Bhatt but had different views about it. Even Headley's bother Hanza discussed this movie-project, Headley confirmed. Headley explained that it was easy to get Rahul as a friend since Rahul was a loner. Headley befriended Rahul Bhatt at a gym where the two used to work-out. Headley convinced Rahul Bhatt that he was a former Major from the Indian Army. Since Headley was in knowledge of the November attacks in Mumbai, he asked Rahul not to go towards Southern Mumbai for some time.
Headley had informed Major Iqbal about his friendship with Rahul Bhatt. Major Iqbal advised Headley not to make friends at heart because after all they are enemies. Headley testified before the court that when he informed Major Iqbal that Rahul Bhatt's father Mahesh Bhatt was very good with Muslims, then his attitude turned sympathetic. David Coleman Headley is a co-accused in the 2008 Mumbai Attack case and has become the Government approver to escape death penalty in return of his cooperation with the investigators.
Src.punjabmailonline.com
