He stayed at Kochi hotel: Home Secy

Union Home Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai who confirmed this said that the National Investigating Agency  was looking into the details of his stay. However, he said that there was no information so far on whether Headley had also come to Kerala. State Intelligence sources here said that Rana and his wife Samraz stayed in Kochi on November 16 and left the next day for Mumbai.

It has been known that he had given an advertisement in newspapers on November 17 as an emigration consultant for those seeking visas to the US and Canada. The police are investigating the calls which came to the Mumbai-based phone numbers he had given in the ad. The people who helped Rana put the ad are also being traced. Police believe that Rana’s stay in Kochi as an emigration consultant could not have been coincidental but a cover for suspected terror activities.

Security lapse

Meanwhile, a French yacht with a US and French national on board which was caught under suspicious circumstances from the ship channel in Kochi on Saturday was allowed to proceed on Sunday. In a stunning expose of the vulnerability of the country’s coastal security, the yacht managed to reach Kochi port without valid documents and unnoticed by any of the enforcement agencies. 

 Pignol Guillaume, 56, owner and crew member of the yacht ‘Andrano’ and his companion 76-year-old Malcolm Russell Williamson Jr were interrogated by several agencies after they were detained. However, the agencies found nothing suspicious during their search. The duo said that they had come to the shore because of bad weather and because their yacht developed technical snag.