Rana was in on 26/11 plot

Tahawwur Rana, the Pakistani-American arrested along with Lashkar-e-Tayyeba agent David Coleman Headley, knew about the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai in advance, said a memorandum filed on Monday in the Chicago court where the two are being tried. Anirudh Bhattacharyya reports. See graphics

Tahawwur Rana, the Pakistani-American arrested along with Lashkar-e-Tayyeba agent David Coleman Headley, knew about the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai in advance, said a memorandum filed on Monday in the Chicago court where the two are being tried.

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Rana and Headley also discussed targets other than those at which terrorists struck on 26/11: the Somnath Temple in Gujarat, the Bollywood film industry and the Shiv Sena.

The memorandum, filed by the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, quotes from the transcript of a previously undisclosed taped conversation between Rana and Headley, to show Rana was told days before the Mumbai attacks that they were about to happen.

Rana had claimed after his arrest that he was ‘a Gandhian’. “Ironically, in invoking the name of a man who embodied the principles of non-violence and truth, Rana seeks to mislead this court as to the extent of his admiration and support for mass murderers,” the memorandum says.

The transcript quoted records a discussion between Headley and Rana during a car ride on September 7, 2009. In it, Rana asks Headley to pass on his compliments to “a specific Lashkar e Tayyeba member they both knew who had coordinated the attacks,” the memorandum says. (see graphics)

The ‘Pasha’ referred to is former Pakistani Army Major Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, indicted by the US for planning a Lashkar terror strike against Denmark. Rana allegedly learnt about the forthcoming Mumbai attack when he met Pasha in Dubai, sometime between November 21-24, 2008.