Rana’s visa papers found, hunt on for Headley’s
The Indian consulate in Chicago has the visa application of Tahawwur Rana Hussain but is searching for that of David Coleman Headley, the government was informed on Thursday, report Jayanth Jacob & Aloke Tikku.
The Indian consulate in Chicago has the visa application of Tahawwur Rana Hussain but is searching for that of David Coleman Headley, the government was informed on Thursday.
The external affairs ministry will probe if someone pushed for Headley’s visa application to be speeded up and whether such a letter was among the papers he submitted, said a senior ministry official, who didn’t wish to be identified.
Since Rana’s business visa was issued on October 31, 2008, they could locate the papers quickly. Headley's application came in July 2007.
“The consulate has informed that many papers visa applications are stacked up in the archive-room. The process is on to locate the papers,” the official said.
When asked about reports of visa papers of Rana and Headley going missing, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao had said on Wednesday she had sought a “factual report” from Chicago.
“It would not be accurate to conclude that these visa applications are missing,” a ministry’s spokesperson said on the issue on Thursday.
The ministry, too, sought a status report from Chicago during the day.
A formal request for the extradition of the two men, suspected of having helped the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in planning the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, will be made at the end of the court procedure in the US, the official said.
It has emerged that Headley and his wife, who too is of Pakistani origin, stayed in Mumbai's Taj Hotel sometime in 2007. She was in Pakistan now, investigators said.
As Headley used cash, and not credit cards, the investigators are finding it difficult to trace his movements.
