Tahawwur Rana Key To 2004 Plot To Assassinate Modi And The Political Cover-Up

Documents accessed clearly say that Ishrat Jahan was a part of the LeT and was tasked to kill Narendra Modi.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

The interrogation of the 64-year-old Tahawwur Rana—whose role as one of the closest friends of David Coleman Headley has been established—if done diligently, is likely to reveal the larger conspiracy hatched by Lashkar-e-Taiba to eliminate the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in a suicide attack.

Rana, at the behest of Headley, became a part of the LeT conspiracy for the 26/11 attacks around 2005, which overlaps with the period during which Headley and Lashkar commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi discussed the Ishrat Jahan operation.

Headley had been associated with Lashkar since 2000.

Three internal documents accessed by The Sunday Guardian clearly say that Ishrat Jahan was a part of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and was tasked to kill Narendra Modi.

One document is a part of the interrogation that NIA did of Headley. The second is a legal document shared by a senior member of the US Embassy posted in 2010, with the Indian agencies quoting the September 2009 interrogation of Headley by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The third is a document shared by the Intelligence Bureau to the Central Bureau of Investigation in February 2013.

All three documents said the same thing: Ishrat Jahan was a part of Lashkar and was tasked to assassinate Narendra Modi.