JOIN USFresh WikiLeaks disclosures about India’s purported efforts to get Lashkar-e-Toiba operative David Coleman Headley extradited from the US expose the double dealing and double talk on the part of New Delhi on a matter which has serious implications for national security.
Headley, who is considered to have worked for both American and Pakistani intelligence agencies, had a major role in preparing the ground for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack. He was later arrested in the US and is awaiting sentence after trial in a Chicago court.
Ever since his arrest the Indian government had in public demanded his extradition to India so that he could be interrogated and then tried. The US was unwilling to hand him over to India but only gave limited access to him for Indian officials in the US. The Indian government had made it out that it was doing everything possible to get him extradited to the country.
The leaked diplomatic cables sent from the then US ambassador to India Timothy Roemer show that former National Security Advisor M K Narayanan had told him that the US did not have to take the Indian demand for extradition seriously. According to the cables India’s demand for extradition was only a posturing for public consumption.
Narayanan has denied that he told the US envoy what has been attributed to him. But the whole Headley saga and the circumstances of the matter lead one only to the conclusion that Roemer, and not Narayanan, is speaking the truth.
This is a serious indictment of India’s foreign policy and its handling of terrorism-related issues. The government was deceiving the public when it maintained that it trying to get the custody of Headley, even as it assured the US that the demand was not serious. So much for a democratic government’s sincerity, respect for the public, transparency and commitment to truth.
In the light of the disclosure about Headley, the charge that India was susceptible to US pressures in the conduct of foreign policy and its handling of a matter which had a bearing on national security was inept does not seem to be off the mark. India took the US interest in keeping Headley on its soil more seriously than its own need to get him to India. This is when it was known that the US had not shared with India information about Headley which could even have helped to avert the 26/11 attack!