NEW DELHI, July 22: Delhi Police will soon be sending a team to Tehran to seek cooperation from their counterparts in its probe into the February 13 bombing of an Israeli embassy vehicle here in which a woman diplomat was seriously injured.
Official sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs said Tehran has conveyed its willingness to assist Delhi Police in its probe after the role of four Iranian nationals surfaced in the bombing that took place barely 500 metres away from the high-security residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Delhi Police has named Houshang Afshar as the main accused who had planted a bomb on the vehicle of Israeli diplomat Tal Yeshua on February 13 that left the diplomat injured.
The names of three more Iranian nationals—Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, Saeid Moradi and Mohammad Kharzei—have also surfaced during the investigations into the probe.
The sources said Iran has been requested through diplomatic channels for help in tracing Afshar besides other details of the three accused who are in the custody of Bangkok and Malaysia.
The Delhi police also wants to corroborate the statement of Syed Mohammed Ahmed Kazmi, an Urdu journalist, arrested for allegedly being a part of larger conspiracy in the bombing incident as the police claimed that he named some Iranian nationals as his handlers during the interrogation.
In a related development, Delhi Police has approached a local court here for issuance of Letters Rogatory to five nations, including Iran and Israel.
The sources said that besides these two countries, Letters Rogatory was being sent to Malaysia, Thailand and Georgia after the Union Home Ministry and Legals and Treaty Division of Ministry of External Affairs to be sent to these respective countries.
The phone book of Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, who was arrested by Malaysian police from Kuala Lumpur airport, led sleuths from external and internal security agencies to Kazmi after which the entire conspiracy started opening up.
Sources said the Malaysian government, which had been cooperative in this case, had, however, made it clear to Indian authorities that Sedaghatzadeh would not be extradited to India as Thai authorities had already made request for him.
This move prompted Indian authorities to send a formal request asking authorities in Kuala Lumpur to share all evidence, which could help in establishing role of Kazmi in the criminal conspiracy, the sources said.
A similar request was being sent to Thai authorities for sharing the interrogation reports of two Iranian nationals—Saeid Moradi and Mohammad Kharzei (both part of botched up plan in Bangkok) — as one of them was a part of the Indian operations as well and had visited New Delhi last year, the sources said.
India has secured an Interpol Red Corner warrant against all the four. India will also be sending a Letters Rogatory to Georgia where Afshar had visited on June 25.
The mobile phone used by the accused was switched on in Georgian capital for 14 seconds after which the Indian number was not used. Sources in the probe agency believe that the phone had been switched on to change to a different SIM card.
The Letters Rogatory will furnish the unique International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number used by Afshar in India and would request the authorities in Tiblisi to check from the operators about the mobile SIM card used in the same mobile phone and the calls made thereafter.
The explosive used for the bombing here was TNT—Trinitrotoluene, the Central Forensic Sciences (CFSL) had said in its report two months after the incident in which an lady envoy was seriously injured.
According to the sources, evidence collected so far which includes a statement of Kazmi to Delhi Police, indicates that the spate of attacks planned in New Delhi, Bangkok and Georgia was to take revenge for attacks on Iranian scientists since 2009.
Four Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in attacks since 2009. (PTI)
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