JOIN US“We have asked for the access,” the source told Indian journalists who are travelling with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Kazakhstan.
The source said that Rana’s admission has only confirmed what India has been saying for the last over two years about Pakistani involvement in the Nov 26-29, 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, including 26 foreigners.
According to media reports, Rana, who is in a Chicago jail, has, in court documents, admitted to providing "material support" to the Mumbai attackers at the behest of Islamabad and the ISI and not at the bidding of Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
However, his lawyers later denied his "knowing involvement" of the Pakistani government and the ISI in the terror attack.
Rana’s accomplice David Coleman Headley, an LeT operative who confessed to plotting the Mumbai attack, was interrogated by Indian investigators in June last year after the US granted access to him.
The source said that though Rana's admission confirms India’s stand, this won’t affect the dialogue process with Pakistan.
The source said that the reply from Washington on Rana’s access was expected by next month.