Kharak Singh, one of the names that came up during the investigations of the 26/11 terror attacks, is ‘ fictitious’.
During the proceedings of Pakistan terrorist Ajmal Kasab’s case, Supreme Court bench consisting of Justices Aftab Alam and C.K. Prasad asked about Kharak Singh and his role in the attacks.
Counsel Gopal Subramaniam, appearing for Maharashtra, responded that Kharak Singh was a ‘fictitious’ name given by a man who prepared the groundwork for the carnage and investigation is still on to find out the real face.
“We still want 36 perpetrators of Mumbai attack. We only got 10 (Kasab and nne of his accomplices killed). Kharak Singh is a ‘fictitious’ name and the investigation is still on to find out the real person,” Mr Subramaniam told the bench.
Mr Subramaniam said the investigation done in collaboration with US agency FBI, revealed that ‘Kharak Singh’ used callphonex portal from a small garage in New Jersey to talk or send emails to some people in Pakistan, US and Russia. The portal was run by one Jordanian national Nazilr-Al-Sharief.
“Kharak Singh had given 15 ID number to callphonex and initially paid Nazir $500 in two installments. He was desperate to establish a link with his contacts in Pakistan, US and Russia in October 2008 before the attack. This has come in a statement of FBI detective Jeffery Mason, who interrogated Nazir in Los Angels,” Mr Subramaniam said.
The revelation came while the top court examined the transcripts of the conversation of Kasab and his nine killed accomplices with their ‘Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’ handlers in
Paksitan. Nazir later demand $1,500 from Kharak Singh after he made extensive use of his network. It was found that the payment was routed through Karachi.
In response to court’s query as to how Nazir was not involved in the conspiracy,
Maharashtra counsel said FBI probe revealed that he was only running a business of providing a portal for making cheap calls. The portal could not be detected or tracked easily in India due to its sophisticated technology.