New Delhi, April 19 (Inditop.com) The US Monday said it has been sharing information with India on David Coleman Headley on a “real time basis” and has made it “top priority” to provide direct access to the American-Pakistani plotter of the Mumbai attacks “as quickly as possible”.
“The US and India are working at the highest level to provide direct access to Headley. Our government has put this as the highest priority in counter-terror cooperation,” US Ambassador Timothy J. Roemer told journalists here.
“We recognise the sensitivity of this issue to India and the people of India,” stressed Roemer, a former member of the 9/11 commission.
“We want to ensure justice is brought to these blood-thirsty terrorist attackers, whether they kill thousands of people in New York or scores of them in Mumbai,” he said.
“This is an issue we want to resolve as quickly as possible,” Roemer said, adding that he has written in his blog that he is “burning the midnight oil” to make this possible.
The envoy said he has spoken at the highest level in the US government, including with the FBI and counter-terror officials, on the issue of access to Headley.
Roemer’s reassurance to India on providing direct access to Headley came more than a week after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raised the issue with US President Barack Obama in Washington.
Obama had assured Manmohan Singh of his full support over the issue of access to Headley.
Armed with Obama’s support, Indian authorities are now planning to write a formal letter to their American counterparts, seeking direct access to Headley.
The envoy underlined that the US authorities were sharing intelligence information on Headley with India on real-time basis.
The cooperation with India includes putting questions posed by Indian authorities to Headley, who is currently in US custody after confessing his role in plotting the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 166 people were killed.
