US consulate terror plot: India to seek info from Malaysia

India will soon approach Malaysian authorities seeking details about the arrest of a Sri Lankan national in that country in connection with an alleged conspiracy to carry out terror strikes on the US and Israel consulates in southern part of this country.

Malaysia, which had recently tipped a central security agency in India about possible attack on US and Israeli consulates in Chennai and Bangalore, arrested a Lankan national from Kepong near Kuala Lumpur last Wednesday.

The Special Malaysian unit was monitoring the man, whose identity was not disclosed, since December last year after it was found he was allegedly involved in plans to carry out terror attacks in India, Deputy Inspector-General of Police Bakri Zinin had said after making his arrest public.

The leads in the case surfaced while Malaysian authorities were probing money laundering and human trafficking cases. Sakir Hussain, a Sri Lankan national, was suspected to be talking to ISI officers and allegedly planning to carry out terror strikes on the two consulates.

The arrests by the Malaysian authorities was a follow up of nabbing of Hussain and his subsequent interrogation which was shared with agencies in Kuala Lumpur and Colombo.

Now the Tamil Nadu police, through diplomatic channels, would approach Malaysian authorities for sharing the interrogation report of the arrested Lankan national, official sources said today.

Hussain told his interrogators that he had been hired allegedly by an official in Pakistani High Commission in Colombo to conduct reconnaissance of US Consulate in Chennai and Israeli Consulate in Bengaluru.

Arrested on April 29 in a coordinated operation involving various Malaysia and Sri Lanka, he is reported to have told the interrogators that the Pakistan's spy agency was planning to send two men from Maldives to Chennai and that he had to arrange for their travel documents and hideouts. 

Hussain had travelled from Colombo to India and was arrested after prolonged monitoring by the central security agencies.

During sustained interrogation Hussain spoke about an alleged plan by the ISI to carry out terror strike on the two consulates and also named an official at the Pakistan High Commission based in Colombo as his handler.

Hussain said that he had been chosen by the ISI since he was engaged in human trafficking, making of forged passports and smuggling of fake Indian currency.

Pictures of US and Israeli consulates showing various gates and roads leading to the two premises were recovered from his laptop, the sources said and claimed that these pictures had been mailed to his alleged handlers in Pakistan and its High Commission in Colombo.

Cyber signatures showed that the pictures were downloaded at a computer within the premises of Pakistan High Commission at Colombo and the same had been shared with Sri Lankan authorities, the sources claimed.

Hussain had allegedly sent sketches of the roads leading to the two consulates in Portable Document Format (PDF) to his handlers, the sources said.

The role of an Pakistani High Commission official in Colombo had figured earlier in 2012-13 also when central security agencies picked up one Tameem Ansari, a frequent flier from Trichy to Colombo. Ansari was arrested after six months of surveillance in 2012.

Ansari after allegedly being brainwashed by the official was roped in to take videos of the Nagapattinam port, the ships that berthed there, the topography and other dimensions, as well as Mallipattinam, traditionally a landing point.

The apparent strategy being followed by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was to rope in Muslims from Sri Lanka for executing their plans to give credibility to the deniability factor that it was not involved in any way.