23 November,2009 10:03 AM IST | | J Dey
After a month's investigation into alleged Lashkaru2013eu2013Taiba terrorist David Coleman Headley, law enforcement agencies have been thrown into a huddle.
The newly-formed National Investigation Agency (NIA) may have updated their library, but the probe is making them go inu00a0 circles. They are getting confused with Headley as the plot surrounding the mastermind grows deeper.
It took a while for the wiser lot in NIA and other related intelligence agencies to realise that they are actually following the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the case. Most of the leads into Headley's dossier were generated in Chicago, where he was arrested.
Some intelligence officials are beginning to believe that Headley could be a deep undercover agent, who went rogue. Headley would not be the first to do so. The phenomenon is not new; a number of times, undercover agents on assignment in other countries have gone 'rogue' and double-crossed their own countries.
What would an investigating agency do in such a situation? Expose the agent and nail him by giving all relevant information about him so that he would possibly be tried.
If he is not a rogue agent, then is it easy for any Daood to become David and that too in the US?
These are just a couple of the several unanswered questions surrounding Headley. Another is how could Headley and his friend Tahawwur Rana slip in and out of terroru2013torn country like Pakistan without being noticed. Particularly, after 9/11.
The second theory doing the rounds is there could be a 'big operation policy' which could follow after the arrest of the American terrorist.
Headley could be used as a red herring, by which NIA's own investigations would expose how vulnerable the country is to terror threats. There was need for safeguards, thereby paving the way for a new policy. The policy could involve India participating in some kind of an antiu2013terror pact or a joint operation.
The third theory is the one currently doing the rounds that Headley was an LeT operative on a hostile reconnaissance of the country.
At this stage, it is difficult to say where the investigations will lead. But Indian investigating agencies will have to depend heavily on America's premier agency FBI to make any real headway in the case.
