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NIA's Jaya Roy, Ashish Batra lead Tahawwur Rana case; one even inspired ‘Jamtara’ | Who are they?
The two officers also played a big role in getting Rana extradited from the US more than a decade and a half after he was arrested in Chicago
Tahawwur Rana, the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks ‘mastermind’, is being held in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) custody in Delhi, and the investigation into the case is being led by two senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, Jaya Roy and Ashish Batra.
The two also played a big role in getting Rana extradited from the US more than a decade and a half after he was arrested in Chicago in an unrelated case. Now that he has been brought back, the duo is leading a 12-member NIA team that will investigate the case.
Who is IPS officer Jaya Roy?
Jaya Roy is a 2011 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Jharkhand cadre. She is currently posted as the NIA team's deputy inspector general (DIG).
Born on April 22, 1979, in West Bengal, Roy joined the Indian Police Services after clearing the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Civil Services exam in 2011. She is reportedly a doctor by training, holding an MBBS degree.
Roy served her initial years of service in the Jharkhand police, where she shot to fame when her team cracked down on cyber criminals in Jamtara. The revelations inspired a web series by the same name, which was released in 2020 on Netflix.
Jaya Roy was called up for Central deputation in 2019. She joined the NIA as a superintendent of police (SP) and rose through the ranks to become the DIG.
Meet officer Ashish Batra
The other leader of the NIA team investigating the Tahawwur Rana case is Ashish Batra. He is a 1997 batch IPS officer who also belongs to the Jharkhand cadre.
Batra currently serves as the NIA team's inspector general (IG). Before joining the federal investigation agency, he led the Jaguar anti-insurgency unit in Jharkhand. After a successful stint there, Batra was deputed to the NIA in 2019 for a tenure of five years, which was extended by two years by the Union home ministry.
The Tahawwur Rana case
Tahawwur Rana is a Pakistani-Canadian doctor who is one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks that rocked the financial capital of India from November 26 to 29, 2008. At least 166 people lost their lives and close to 400 were wounded when 10 terrorists associated with Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba laid siege to the city.
Agencies believe that Rana helped another mastermind, David Coleman Headley, in traveling to India before the attacks for a recce and planning of the same. His Chicago-based travel firm was allegedly used as a front for the travels by Headley, who is also his childhood friend.
A special NIA court sent Rana to an 18-day agency custody on Friday, hours after he arrived in Delhi on a special plane from the US, where he had been in jail since 2009.
