Voice on 26/11 tapes is mine, confirms Jundal

Arrested 26/11 handler Abu Jundal has confirmed that the voice in the terror tapes is his, sources in the ministry of home affairs told Hindustan Times.

Arrested 26/11 handler Abu Jundal has confirmed that the voice in the terror tapes is his, sources in the ministry of home affairs told Hindustan Times.

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Jundal, who had coordinated the Mumbai attacks from a control room in Karachi, identified it when the tapes were played out to him. “We have sent the terror tapes and samples of his voice to a laboratory in Chandigarh,” a source told HT. “The forensic report will help establish Pakistan’s complicity and serve as crucial evidence in a court of law.”

Amongst the conversations was one in which Jundal could be heard telling terrorists in Chabad House to kill their hostages. Though the handler has confessed to issuing the instruction, it will not be admissible in court.

The forensic report, which constitutes hard evidence, will also be shared with the FBI, considering that American citizens were also killed in the 26/11 attacks. The report could help India put pressure on Pakistan because it would confirm Jundal’s presence in the terror control room.

India has repeatedly asked Pakistan to provide voice samples of those present in the control room, but received little cooperation in that regard.

Pakistan-born American terrorist David Coleman Headley had also helped identify the voices of handlers in the Karachi control room. And now, with the forensic report in the Jundal case, investigators will be able to prove that the Mumbai attacks were plotted and executed from Pakistani soil.

Earlier, Pakistan’s high commissioner to India Salman Bashir had dismissed allegations against Pakistani state actors as “unbelievable”. Investigators, however, say Jundal could not have escaped the raid on the Karachi control room if Pakistan was serious about arresting 26/11 perpetrators.

Jundal had confessed that though Lashkar ideologue Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi was arrested during the raid on the Karachi control room, he managed to escape later. Following that, in the face of mounting international pressure, he was sent off to Saudi Arabia.