New Delhi: It is a task that the elite special unit of the Delhi Police, engaged in countering terrorism, would have never thought of handling during the course of its sensitive duties.
The police is looking for a pimp and two to three call girls who were allegedly engaged by Houshand Afshar Irani during his two visits to the national capital this year and in 2011, officials privy to the case said on Sunday. Irani is the suspected bomber in the attack on a Israeli diplomat on February 13.
The 39-year-old Irani had met a person at Central Delhi after obtaining his telephone number from the classifieds section of a newspaper which claimed to provide "female escorts", they said.
After that, during his fortnight-long stay each time in 2011 and this year February, Irani had engaged two to three female escorts, a lead in the probe which had been provided by hotel staff in central Delhi. This has been further corroborated by the telephone number used by the alleged bomber, against whom an Interpol Red Corner Notice has been issued.
Besides Irani, Delhi Police secured Interpol Warrant of arrest against 50-year-old Seyed Ali Mahdiansar, 47-year-old Mohammareza Abol Ghashemi (both alleged conspirators) and 31-year-old Masoud Sedaghatzadeh (alleged mastermind and at present in custody in Malaysia).
Delhi Police have already arrested Seyed Mohammed Ahmed Kazmi, a journalist working for Iranian publications, for his alleged role in providing logistics in carrying out the car bombing of Israeli diplomat Tal Yeshua.
The sources said that the statement of the "female escorts" would help in understanding the Iranian bomber more and may help in providing additional details about the people he visited and the places he had gone.
The other bombers caught in Bangkok had also engaged the services of female escorts and the probe reports shared by Bangkok included pictures of Sedaghatzadeh and two other bombers -- Saeid Moradi and Mohammad Kharzei (both part of botched up plan in Bangkok) with some women escorts in Pattaya.
The photo taken by one of the women from her mobile phone purportedly showed the three Iranians at a Middle Eastern bar surrounded by hookah water-pipes, and seen to be enjoying the company of the females.
Bangkok police had also recorded the statement of one of the women escorts, shared with police, in which it was alleged that Kharzei had asked her to escort him as he was not good in conversing in English language.
According to the sources privy to the probe conducted in India, Malaysia and Thailand and also on the basis of the statement of Kazmi to Delhi Police, the spate of attacks planned in New Delhi, Bangkok and Georgia was to take revenge on attacks on Iranian scientists since 2009.
Four Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in attacks since 2009.
Massoud Ali Mohammadi was killed by a remote-controlled bomb in Tehran in January 2010 followed Majid Shahriyari, who was killed in a car bomb attack in November, 29, 2010. He is believed to have a role in one of Iran's biggest nuclear projects.
The day Shahriyari was killed, there was a failed attempt on life of Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani, a scientist working with Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation. In 2011, another scientist Darioush Rezaeinejad, was shot dead by gunmen in eastern Tehran July 2011 followed by killing of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, who died along with his bodyguard when an assailant on a motorcycle slapped a magnetic bomb on his car as he commuted to work.
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