Mumbai attack chargesheet nails two Pak officials

A colonel-rank official and a civilian — both with the Special Communication Organisation operating under Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Technology — have been named for facilitating the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP)-aided communication the 26/11 attackers had with their handlers in Pakistan. They are among the 35 wanted listed in the chargesheet filed by Mumbai Police.

The Mumbai Police Cyber Crime Cell tracked the two officials — Colonel R. Saadat Ullah and Khurram Shazad — during their search for Kharak Singh, the name used to open a VoIP account with Callphonex, a US-based service provider. The account was opened on October 21 and 22, 2008. On October 27, an initial payment of $250 was wired to the account via Moneygram. The moneygram agent, Paracha International Exchange, was traced to Lahore.

A second payment of $229 was made on November 25, a day before the attackers reached Mumbai, via Western Union Money Transfer agent Madina Trading, Brescia in Italy. The sender was one Javed Iqbal who’d provided his Pakistani passport for identification.

During investigation, it came to light that the communication with Callphonex was made using the e-mail ID kharaktelco@yahoo.com. The ID was accessed from at least 10 Internet Protocol addresses. It is from one of these that the cell traced the location of Saadat Ullah and Shazad.

Another supposed Pakistan army official was identified by the pseudonym Major General Sahab. Arrested Lashkar-e-Tayyeba operative Ajmal Amir Kasab and Indian LeT operatives Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Mohammad identified the Major as the one involved in training LeT cadre engaged in anti-India operations. JCP, Crime, Rakesh Maria said efforts were on to identify that official.

Furthermore, the chargesheet has ruled out the possibility of local or underworld connections to the attacks, as suspected by some quarters. It also clarifies that all the attackers were fidayeen and had no plans to return to Pakistan.

Though 12 different FIRs were registered in connection with the attacks, the police filed one consolidated chargesheet after clubbing all the offences. “All these offences are part and parcel of one broader conspiracy and, therefore, we have filed one consolidated chargesheet”, Special Public Prosecutor Ujwal Nikam said.

The chargesheet outlines in detail how LeT bosses across the border hatched a conspiracy, trained 32 cadre and selected 10 for the attacks, then retrained them. It talks about how the 10 reached Mumbai on November 26 after hijacking the fishing trawler Kuber and how they wreaked havoc across the city for the next three days.