Delhi confident of grilling Mumbai terror suspect

Bangalore/New Delhi : India yesterday asserted it would insist on and was confident of interrogating David Headley over the Mumbai terror attack, a day after US ambassador Timothy Roemer said no decision had been taken on giving New Delhi direct access to the Pakistani American terror suspect.

"One day or the other, the United States will have to agree and expedite the issue that Headley will have to undergo interrogation by our agencies," Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily said in Bangalore.

Moily told reporters that "this is a matter [where] we need to press hard our argument and tell them what's necessary. We have to make a strong case which we have already made out. He is involved, really involved [in the Mumbai attacks]."

Coinciding with Moily's assertion, a home ministry official told IANS in New Delhi: "The government will go by what US Attorney General Eric Holder told Home Minister [P. Chidambaram]. He [Holder] is the top boss of the justice department in the US government."

He said New Delhi would soon ask the US authorities for specific dates to question Headley, who visited India more than once to look for targets that Pakistan-based terrorists could attack.

Eventually, 10 well-armed terrorists sneaked into Mumbai by sea from Pakistan and went on a killing spree in November 2008, leaving 166 Indians and foreigners dead.