Ex-Pak Army major is 26/11 mastermind?

A former Major in the Pakistan Army [ Images ], who joined the ranks of Lashkar-e-Tayiba [ Images ] (LeT), is emerging as one of the masterminds of the Mumbai [ Images ] carnage and is believed to have been in direct touch with arrested US terror suspect David Headley [ Images ].

The former armyman -- identified as Sajid Mir -- has turned out to be Headley's handler in Pakistan. He had directed the American to learn to pray like Jews so that he could conduct a recce of Jewish Centre Nariman House in Mumbai and the premises of a newspaper in Denmark, official sources said in Mumbai on Wednesday.

The sources said Mir has been arrested in Pakistan but this could not be independently verified.

The 48-year-old American-born Headley, who was arrested by the FBI sleuths at airport in Chicago in October this year for allegedly plotting to carryout terror strikes in India [ Images ] and Denmark, had told his investigators that he had learnt to pray like Jews at the instance of Mir, as this could help him to target Flemming Rose, a cartoonist of Danish newspaper besides helping him in conducting a reccee of the Nariman House, a place which was attacked by LeT terrorists on November 26.