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A officer of Deputy Superintendent of Police rank of the National investigation Agency has reached Kochi to investigate the activities conducted by David Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana after intelligence confirmed the name of a local contact for Rana, Shameer.
Sources in the state police said that the officer would be having meetings with the sleuths of the Central Intelligence Agency and the special team of the state police which has been on the trial of the dreaded outlaw from Kerala, CMA Basheer, former national president of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India.
The Intelligence Bureau believes that Basheer would have given directives to the local contacts to be in touch with Rana who had arrived in Cochin on November 16, 2008, for a day before proceeding to Mumbai.
With the intelligence slowly putting together the jumbled pieces, it is almost clear that Rana and Headley were on a mission to activate the sleeper cells in different parts of the country for the Illyas Kashmiri led 313 brigade. Police sources opined that several missing Keralite youths have been indoctrinated into Kashmiri's group.
The NIA officer is also probing the boat trip taken by Rana in the backwaters of Kochi. The NIA officer would also be cross checking on who had arranged for his private boating trip and this would be of great use and sources told rediff.com that the officer has already started preliminary investigations with travel and tour operators.