Hoax caller who brought India, Pak on verge of war post-26/11was Pearl’s alleged assassin - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

A Pakistani inmate had made hoax calls by the name of the then Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee to President Asif Ali Zardari and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, which heightened tension between the two countries following the Mumbai attacks. The caller named Omar Saeed Sheikh had made the calls threatening the Pakistani leadership from inside the Hyderabad jail, investigations have revealed. “Omar Saeed Sheikh was the hoax caller. It was he who threatened the civilian and military leaderships of Pakistan over telephone. And he did so from inside Hyderabad jail,” The Dawn quoted one of the officials probing the issue, as saying. Sheikh used a British SIM card to make threatening calls to the leaders of both the countries on November 28, in his bid to escalate the already heightened tension following the November 26 carnage. He also made an attempt to talk to the then US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice , but security checks prevented him from doing so. It is pertinent to mention here that former President General Pervez Musharraf , in his biography, had alleged that Sheikh was an agent of the British intelligence agency, MI6. He is currently languishing in Karachi Jail. Sheikh was one of the militants freed by India during the IC-184 hostage drama in 1999. It is believed that soon after his release, he developed close relations with the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s (LeT) leaders, including Zakiur Rehman Lakhwi . Sheikh also spent days in terror camps based in POK’s Muzaffarabad, where he used to deliver lectures to the new recruits. He was arrested in 2002 for killing US journalist, Daniel Pearl.