David Coleman Headley, who was convicted of plotting the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, is now reportedly battling for his life in a hospital ICU after he was attacked by two inmates in Chicago prison. Headley is an American terrorist with origins in Pakistan.
While the exact source of the information is yet to be ascertained, media reports have said that Headley was attacked on July 8 and sustained serious injuries. He was then rushed to the North Evanston hospital, where he is at the critical care unit.
Though information on why he was attacked is not available, it is being said that the inmates who assaulted Headley are brothers who are in prison for attacking policemen years ago.
Meanwhile, the United States authorities are yet to comment on the attack or Headley's condition. "We are not able to locate information about this individual," the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago told the Press Trust of India, when asked about the attack.
Ujjawal Nikam, the special public prosecutor in the 26/11 trial, also said that he wasn't aware of any attack on Headley. "We have not received information on any such attack on Headley," the Times of India quoted him as saying.
The terrorist, whose actual name is Daood Sayed Gilani, is serving a 35-year sentence in a federal prison in Chicago. He had pleaded guilty in a US court and requested a lesser severe sentence in exchange for cooperation in the 26/11 trial. He then deposed as an approver in 2016 through video conferencing.
The 58-year-old was also known to visit Pakistan on a regular basis and trained with Lashkar-e-Taiba. He had reportedly also filmed a few cities in India before the 26/11 attack.
It has been said that he carried out five spying missions in Mumbai and chalked out targets for the 26/11 attacks that killed about 168 in the city.
