The city police on Sunday arrested a man from Mumbai who allegedly helped David Coleman Headley — one of the Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives involved in the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai in 2008 — and who was recently in Calcutta to allegedly carry out a recce on Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, police said.
Rajaram Rege, 53, was arrested from his Mumbai residence and brought to Calcutta on Monday on transit remand.
“We were getting some information about a man who had come to Calcutta from Mumbai and was carrying out a recce on a political personality here. The vigilance was increased. Preliminary investigations revealed that Rajaram Rege is the same person who had helped LeT operative David Coleman Headley to conduct a recce of a political party head office in Mumbai,” additional commissioner-I of Kolkata Police, Murlidhar Sharma, said on Monday.
Rege came to the city and checked into a hotel in central Calcutta between April 18 and 20, the police said.
“We have found that he stayed here for two days, obtained phone numbers of MP Abhishek Banerjee and his PA and tried to contact them. He also carried out recce of the MP’s house and office, which is parallel to what Headley had done in Mumbai before the 26/11 terror attack,” Sharma said.
He added that it was subject to investigation how Rege had obtained the phone number of the Z-plus category MP and if any subversive activity was being planned.
“Based on the complaint of the MP’s PA at Shakespeare Sarani police station on Sunday, we have started a case under sections of criminal conspiracy, criminal intimidation, section of the information technology act and section 9 of the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order Act,” Sharma said.
