(With inputs from ANI)

MUMBAI: Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley said on Thursday that Mumbra resident Ishrat Jahan was a suicide bomber for Pakistan-based terror outfit Laskhar-e-Taiba."Jahan, who was killed in a 2004 encounter by Gujarat cops, was a Lashkar member," Headley said while deposing for the third day before a Mumbai court via video from the US.Deposing before the court, Headley claimed that the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attack, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi told him about a botched up operation of Muzammil in India."The operation was about shooting the police at some naka. One woman LeT named Ishrat Jahan was involved. Muzammil Bhatt was the head of our group before Sajid Mir," he told the court. He, however, denied the involvement of any woman suicide bomber in the LeT but later named Ishrat Jahan as an LeT operative.Early on the morning of 15 June 2004, Ishrat Jahan, Javed Sheikh, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana were shot dead on the road leading to the Kotarpur waterworks on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The encounter was carried out allegedly by a team led by DIG D.G. Vanjara, who was later jailed for his alleged involvement in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter.The police had alleged that Ishrat and her associates were LeT operatives involved in a plot to assassinate the chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. Later, an investigation was launched into the allegations that Ishrat was killed in a fake encounter. After a long investigation, in 2009, an Ahmedabad Metropolitan court ruled that the encounter was staged.The decision was challenged by the Gujarat state government, and taken to the high court. On 3 July 2013, the CBI has filed its first chargesheet in an Ahmedabad court saying that the shooting was a staged encounter carried out in cold blood.Deposing from an undisclosed location in the US, Headley had told special judge GA Sanap earlier this week that ISI was helping different terror outfits in Pakistan and was providing financial, military and moral support.Headley could not testify yesterday because of a technical snag in video conferencing.Headley, who had scouted in detail the places in Mumbai that were attacked by 10 LeT terrorists on November 26, 2008, also revealed that the outfit had initially planned to attack a conference of Indian defence scientists that was to take place at the Taj Mahal Hotel.He said he also scouted the famous Siddhivinayak Temple and Naval air station on the direction of LeT commanders.Headley said earlier in the week that he knew ISI official Brigadier Riyaz as the handler of LeT's top commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, who was the mastermind of the 26/11 attacks.Headley, who had visited Mumbai seven times to scout for targets, revealed that plans to target Mumbai had started over a year before the 26/11 attacks that killed 166 people.