26/11 Mumbai attacks accused Tahawwur Rana being produced at Patiala House Court, following extradition from the US
Rana is extradited to India for the 2008 Mumbai attack involvement. It is a first such US transfer to India in a terrorism case. Rana was previously sentenced in USA for aiding Lashkar-e-Taiba. US Supreme Court has rejected challenges to extradition.
A Pakistani-born Canadian businessman accused of helping orchestrate the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, one of India’s deadliest, arrived in New Delhi on Thursday after the U.S. extradited him in the first such transfer in a terrorism case.
Tahawwur Rana, 64, a doctor-turned-businessman, was extradited in connection with the attacks that killed more than 160 people.
“The National Investigation Agency on Thursday successfully secured the extradition … after years of sustained and concerted efforts to bring the key conspirator … to justice,” NIA, India’s anti-terror agency, said in a statement.
He was accompanied back by Indian security agencies after his petitions challenging the extradition were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. Rana’s extradition is a “great success” of the diplomacy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah said on Wednesday.
“It is the responsibility of the Indian government to bring back all those who have abused the land and people of India,” he posted on X.
India formally sought Rana’s custody in June 2020, and President Donald Trump announced Rana’s transfer in February this year during a joint press conference with Modi in Washington.
“The United States has long supported India’s efforts to ensure those responsible for these attacks are brought to justice,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters in Washington. “He (Rana) is in their possession and we’re very proud of that dynamic.”
Rana was sentenced to 14 years in prison in the U.S. in 2013 for providing support to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani Islamist group that India says was responsible for the 2008 attacks.
“As far as our record indicates, he (Rana) did not even apply for renewal for his Pakistani-origin documents for the last two decades,” Shafqat Ali Khan, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, said at a media briefing on Thursday.
Rana’s lawyer has said that Rana was a “good man and got sucked into something.” Over the course of three days in November 2008, 10 heavily armed attackers targeted major landmarks across Mumbai, including two luxury hotels, a Jewish centre and the main train station, killing 166 people. India has said Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the U.S. State Department has designated a terrorist organisation, orchestrated the attacks. Pakistan denies supporting extremist activities.
Rana was also found guilty in June 2011 of conspiring to attack a Danish newspaper, a plot hatched by the militant group that was never carried out. The extradition took “years of sustained and concerted efforts to bring the key conspirator behind the 2008 mayhem to justice”.
US President Donald Trump announced in February that Washington would extradite Rana, who he called “one of the very evil people in the world”. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said Thursday that the United States was “proud” that Rana was now in Indian custody over the “horrific” attack.
“The United States has long supported India’s efforts to ensure those responsible for these attacks are brought to justice, and as President Trump has said, the United States and India will continue to work together to combat the global scourge of terrorism,” Bruce told reporters.
Rana was flown to India after the US Supreme Court this month rejected his bid to remain in the United States, where he was serving a sentence related to another LeT-linked attack.
New Delhi blamed the LeT group — as well as intelligence officials from New Delhi’s arch-enemy Pakistan — for the 2008 Mumbai attacks when 10 Islamist gunmen carried out a multi-day slaughter in the country’s financial capital.
India accuses Rana of helping his longterm friend, David Coleman Headley, who was sentenced by a US court in 2013 to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to aiding LeT militants, including by scouting target locations in Mumbai.
Rana, who denies the charges, is accused of playing a smaller role than Headley, but India maintains he is one of the key plotters.
Rana “is accused of conspiring with David Coleman Headley, and operatives of designated (Pakistan-based) terrorist organisations LeT and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami… to carry out the devastating terror attacks,” the NIA said in the statement.
Rana, a former military medic who served in Pakistan’s army, emigrated to Canada in 1997, before moving to the United States and setting up businesses in Chicago, including a law firm and a slaughterhouse.
He was arrested by US police in 2009.
A US court in 2013 acquitted Rana of conspiracy to provide material support to the Mumbai attacks. But the same court convicted him of backing LeT to provide material support to a plot to commit murder in Denmark.
Rana was sentenced to 14 years for his involvement in a conspiracy to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper,
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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday took Mumbai attacks mastermind Tahawwur Hussain Rana into 18-day custody, during which he will be questioned in detail to unravel the complete conspiracy behind the deadly 26/11 terror strike.
The anti-terror agency had produced Rana before the NIA Special Court at Patiala House after formally placing him under arrest on his arrival at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport here on Thursday evening, following his successful extradition from the US.
The court on Friday sent Rana to 18-day NIA custody, following which he was brought from Patiala House courts complex to the NIA headquarters in a heavily-secured motorcade comprising Delhi Police’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) and other security personnel.
Rana will be kept in a highly secured cell inside the anti-terror agency’s head office at CGO complex here, officials said.
“Rana will remain in NIA custody for 18 days, during which time the agency will question him in detail in order to unravel the complete conspiracy behind the deadly 2008 attacks, in which a total of 166 persons were killed and over 238 injured,” said a statement issued by the probe agency soon after the court’s order., accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks case, was brought before a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Delhi on Thursday night, just hours after being extradited from the United States. He was produced amid tight security.
The NIA had sought 20 days’ custody of the 63-year-old, asserting that Rana was part of a larger criminal conspiracy that led to the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai. According to the agency, co-accused David Coleman Headley had disclosed the full scope of the planned operation to Rana before visiting India.
The NIA also told the court that Headley had emailed Rana a detailed list of his possessions and resources in anticipation of possible complications. The communication, the agency claimed, also revealed the roles of other accused, including Ilyas Kashmiri and Abdur Rehman.
Rana was represented by advocate Piyush Sachdeva from the Delhi Legal Services Authority, while Senior Advocate Dayan Krishnan and Special Public Prosecutor Narender Mann appeared for the NIA.
Ahead of the production of Rana before the court, the Delhi Police removed mediapersons and members of the public from the court premises, citing security concerns. While asking the mediapersons to leave, police said it was ensuring that the court premises was fully vacant.
Rana was brought to the court in a cavalcade including a jail van, an armoured SWAT vehicle and an ambulance.
Police authorities cited security and safety concerns for restricting people’s access to the court complex, and said “no one would be permitted inside”.
Rana, a 64-year-old Canadian national of Pakistani origin, one of the key accused in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, landed at Delhi’s Palam airport at 2: 50 pm on Thursday, following his extradition from the US.
Rana was brought on a special flight escorted by a combined team of Indian intelligence and investigative officials. Security has been significantly heightened in the capital, with bulletproof vehicles and armed commandos deployed at the Palam airport.
In a statement, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said the extradition happened after years of sustained and concerted efforts to bring the alleged key conspirator behind the 2008 mayhem to justice.
“With the active assistance of USDoJ, the US Sky Marshal, NIA worked closely with other Indian intelligence agencies, NSG through the entire extradition process, which also saw India’s Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs coordinating with the other relevant authorities in the United States to take the matter to its successful conclusion”, the statement read.
Rana will be taken under tight security to the headquarters of the NIA, where a high-security cell has been readied for his interrogation. He will be put on trial for his alleged involvement in the 26/11 attacks, which claimed 166 lives during a coordinated three-day assault on Mumbai.
A high-powered team of 12 National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials—including the Director General, two Inspector Generals, one Deputy Inspector General, and a Superintendent of Police—will begin questioning Rana.
According to NIA sources, only these 12 officials involved directly in the probe will be granted access to Rana’s cell. Any other officer would need prior permission. Among those in the core team are NIA DG Sadanand Date, IG Ashish Batra, and DIG Jaya Roy.
Rana will be shown a range of material, including recorded voice samples, photographs, videos, and email trails, some of which are expected to establish his links to Pakistan’s intelligence network and terror operatives.
Rana’s arrival, cloaked in a dense security blanket, comes just hours after Pakistan’s Foreign Office issued a carefully worded video statement distancing itself from him.
The statement declared that Rana had not renewed any Pakistani documentation in the last two decades and that his Canadian nationality was “very clear.”
Sources in India’s intelligence establishment believe the Pakistani Foreign Office’s abrupt distancing is no coincidence. Rana, they assert, holds vital knowledge of Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus and its hand in orchestrating the Mumbai attacks.
His known ties to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Army make him a potential mine of damning testimony that could expose the state’s role in the 26/11 attacks.
“Pakistan fears Rana will spill the beans… this sudden disavowal is nothing but strategic panic,” said a senior counter-terror official.
Meanwhile, Israel on Thursday hailed the extradition of Tahawwur Rana.
“I would like to thank the Government of India for its persistence in bringing the terrorists to justice,” Israel’s Ambassador to India, Reuven Azar said in a statement.
Rana’s extradition is the culmination of a lengthy legal and diplomatic struggle that saw Indian authorities pressing the United States under the 1997 India-US Extradition Treaty. After years of litigation, the US Supreme Court dealt the final blow to Rana’s attempts to evade deportation by rejecting his plea for a stay.
In a blunt order, the apex court ruled, “The application for stay addressed to the Chief Justice and referred to the Court is denied.”
Rana’s lawyers had pleaded that extraditing him would violate the UN Convention Against Torture due to his Pakistani-Muslim background and the politically sensitive nature of the case. The court, however, found the arguments unconvincing.
Authorities have yet to finalise Rana’s place of incarceration, with both Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail and Delhi’s Tihar Prison being considered. Jail authorities in both cities have been instructed to prepare high-security cells.
In a late-night notification, Centre has appointed advocate Narender Mann as special public prosecutor for conducting trial and other matters related to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) case RC-04/2009/NIA/DLI (Mumbai attacks) for three years.
“In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 15 of the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008 (34 of 2008), read with sub-section (8) of section 18 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), the central government hereby appoints Narender Mann, advocate as special public prosecutor for conducting trial and other matters related to NIA case RC-04/2009/NIA/DLI on behalf of the National Investigation Agency before the NIA Special Courts at Delhi and Appellate Courts, for a period of three years from the date of publication of this notification or till the completion of trial of the said case, whichever is earlier,” the notification said.
Rana’s role in the Mumbai attacks stems from his close association with David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani-American operative who conducted reconnaissance missions for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group.
