Headley’s gym contact cracks amid publicity,slips out of home

“He comes and goes and we never really pester him. My wife and I are confined to the house as I am a heart patient and she has high pressure. However,our household depends on Vilas entirely. He has always been an independent and strong-minded boy and it’s been over six years since he began training as a gym instructor. We don’t know much about his work,” his father Pandurang Warak said.

He added that after a barrage of journalists arrived at their home,Vilas went out and was yet to return. “He didn’t tell us where he was going. We just hope he is safe as after hearing about the ongoing investigation and his tip-offs to the police we have been worried about his safety.”

Earlier in the day,a PTI report quoted Warak as saying,“I have done a great service to the nation by going to Maria (JCP Rakesh Maria) telling him everything that I knew about Headley. He was a nice guy and now I find that he was not a genuine friend. I never went to meet Headley; he came to me.”

Sources said it was through Warak that Headley first met filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt’s son Rahul. PTI quoted Warak as having said that the gym’s manager had told him to lie low till the matter was sorted out.

“I have lost everything,” Warak told PTI,adding,“I happened to see news about Headley’s terror links on TV and was shocked. I informed about it to Rahul and we subsequently told Mumbai police crime branch about our interaction with Headley. Headley was a nice talker and a go-getter who called me his guru and a younger brother. I was sacked from a place where I have worked for eight years,and now nobody seems to care. I went to the police as a responsible Indian citizen and did whatever I could do.”