Tahawwur Rana brought to India to face the law for 26/11 Mumbai attacks, sent to NIA custody for 18 days
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a key accused in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was extradited from the US to India for prosecution after 16 years.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a key accused in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was brought back to India on Thursday , ending a 16-year-long wait to prosecute one of the planners of the deadliest terror strike in India that killed 166 people and injured 238 others.
Officials from National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the National Security Guard escorted Rana to New Delhi from the US.
Investigators will now question Rana in their attempt to zero in on his conspiracy with terrorist organisations Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami (HUJI), the role of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the Pakistani army, and other conspirators behind the deadly strike that shook Mumbai and changed how India fought terror.
“The NIA on Thursday evening formally arrested Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the key conspirator in the deadly 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, immediately after his arrival at IGIA, New Delhi, following his successful extradition from the US,” said the federal agency, which came into existence primarily because of 26/11 strikes.
Rana will be only the second person to stand trial in India for the deadly 2008 attacks, and the first time that Indian investigators have in custody a mastermind of the strikes that exposed the country’s under-preparedness, triggered the complete overhaul of the security and intelligence apparatus, and led to the creation of NIA.
Rana was brought to India on a special aircraft, a Gulfstream G550, that first stopped in Dubai, before landing in Delhi at around 6pm. After that, he was formally arrested by NIA, administered a medical test, and then taken to the Patiala house court premises, where he appeared before special NIA judge Chanderjit Singh as the agency sought his custody for 20 days. The judge remanded him in NIA custody for 18 days.
Senior advocate Dayan Krishnan and special public prosecutor Narender Mann represented NIA, and Piyush Sachdev and Lakshya Dheer from the Delhi Legal Services Authority represented Rana.
A Canadian citizen and a former captain in the Pakistan army, Rana helped co-conspirator and childhood friend David Coleman Headley in reconnaissance of targets in Mumbai and planned attacks at National Defence College (NDC) and Chabad Houses. Rana also conspired with operatives of designated terrorist organisations Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami (HUJI) along with other Pakistan-based co-conspirators to carry out the terror attacks, NIA said. Both LeT and HUJI were declared as terrorist organisations by the government under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, it added.
“Rana was escorted to New Delhi by teams of NSG and NIA, comprising senior officials, on a special plane from Los Angeles, US. The NIA investigation team at the airport arrested Rana, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin living primarily in Chicago (US), soon after he emerged from the airplane, after completing all the necessary legal formalities,” the federal agency said.
Throughout the day, the airport, the court premises as well as the NIA office were shrouded in a dense cover of security as authorities blocked some gates of metro stations, deployed bulletproof vehicles, SWAT teams, quick response teams (QRTs) and multi-layered barricading.
“I am overjoyed that Tahawwur Rana is finally being brought back to India. This is the biggest victory against terrorism …Rana should be given the death sentence,” said Devika Natwarlal Rotawan, a victim of the 26/11 attack.
The US hailed the extradition. “Rana’s extradition is a critical step toward seeking justice for the six Americans and scores of other victims who were killed in the heinous attacks,” the spokesperson for the US Department of Justice told news agency PTI.
Pakistan said that it has nothing to do with Rana. “He is a Canadian national and as per our record he has not renewed his Pakistani documents for over two decades,” Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan said in Islamabad.
A team led by inspector general Ashish Batra and DIG Jaya Roy, along with officers from the central agency, travelled to Los Angeles on Sunday to take the custody of Rana from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) based on a “surrender warrant” signed by US secretary of state Marco Rubio. He was lodged at Los Angeles Metropolitan detention centre and was handed over to the NIA team on Tuesday evening.
NIA said it secured Rana’s extradition after years of sustained efforts, and after the terror mastermind’s last-ditch efforts to block his extradition failed. Asserting that Rana was brought with the coordinated efforts of the external affairs and home ministries, along with the relevant authorities in the US, NIA said it worked closely with other Indian intelligence agencies through the entire extradition process, “which marked a major step in India’s efforts to bring individuals involved in terrorism to justice”.
A Pakistan-born Canadian citizen, Rana was arrested by US authorities on October 18, 2009, two weeks after his childhood friend Headley was held. Rana was tried on three counts in the US – conspiracy to support terrorism in India and Denmark and providing support to LeT, a foreign terrorist organisation. Simultaneously, India declared Rana a wanted person and issued an arrest warrant on August 28, 2018, on charges of involvement in conspiracy, waging war, a terrorist attack and committing murder.
Rana was convicted on June 9, 2011, of involvement in the terror conspiracy in Denmark and providing support to LeT, but acquitted in the terror conspiracy in India. On January 17, 2013, a US district court sentenced him to 168 months in prison; he was cleared for release on compassionate grounds during the Covid-19 pandemic. Rana was rearrested on June 10, 2020, following India’s extradition request. On May 16, 2023, a district court in California cleared his extradition to India.
His appeals were rejected in 2023 and 2024. He then moved the US Supreme Court, which rejected his appeal on two occasions – one on January 21 and another on March 6. The extradition was approved by the Donald Trump administration during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US in February, and secretary of state Marco Rubio signed the order. “We are giving a very violent man back to India immediately to face justice in India,” Trump had said.
The extradition sparked a political row with Union minister Piyush Goyal hailing the government.
“During Congress’s time, the terrorists had attacked the very hotel we are standing in. However, Congress didn’t do anything to punish those involved…this is PM Modi’s resolve to bring them to justice, and they get punished.” he told news agency ANI.
Former Union home minister P Chidambaram hit back. “The Modi government did not initiate this process, nor did it secure any new breakthrough. It merely benefited from the mature, consistent, and strategic diplomacy begun under the UPA,” he said. Union home minister Amit Shah had said on Wednesday that Rana’s extradition was a big success of the Modi government.