Pak. official recruited Sri Lankan Tamils for recce

SUHASINI HAIDAR-July 28, 2014

U.S. and Israeli consulates in Chennai and Bangalore were the targets

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has prepared a dossier to be handed over to Sri Lankan officials with details of an official in the Pakistan High Commission in Colombo, suspected of being involved in a terror plot to target U.S. and Israeli consulates in Chennai and Bangalore, sources confirmed to The Hindu.

According to the dossier, prepared under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty signed between India and Sri Lanka in 2010, the officials will be given details of a consular officer named Amir Zubair Siddiqui. News agency PTI, which first reported the story, said it received no reply from the Pakistan High Commission in Sri Lanka on its queries regarding the report.

The operation of Pakistan High Commission official Amir Zubair Siddiqui, on whom the NIA prepared a dossier, allegedly involved a network of Sri Lankan Tamils recruited for the plot to target U.S. and Israeli consulates in Chennai and Bangalore. The recruits had conducted reconnaissance operations on the consulates, sources told The Hindu.

The plot was discovered, say officials, when police in Tamil Nadu arrested a Sri Lankan national last month, who said he had taken photos and other details during his reconnaissance mission and sent them to the suspected official in Colombo.

Sources also confirmed that the information received from the investigation so far had been shared with officials in the U.S. and Israeli missions in India, but did not, however, have details of any action taken by them. The NIA dossier will be dealt with through diplomatic channels in Colombo, and it remains to be seen how the government of Sri Lanka will act on the dossier. However, PTI quoted Press attache Muhammad Daud Ehtesham as saying Pakistan and its state institutions were responsible entities and did not indulge in such activities.