Tahawwur Hussain Rana, India’s most wanted who is accused of plotting the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, is on way back to face the law. A special flight carrying him departed from the US this evening after he exhausted all legal avenues to stop his extradition.
Rana, 64, will land in Delhi tomorrow afternoon, sources said, and he will be arrested by the National Investigation Agency immediately. A joint team of the National Investigation Agency and the Research and Analysis Wing is reportedly bringing him back.
He is likely to be presented in a Delhi court, sources said. The Mumbai police have not been officially informed when he would be transferred to the city. He has been charged with criminal conspiracy, waging war against the government of India, murder and forgery and under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
A Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin who was based in Chicago, Tahawwur Rana is accused of playing a key role in the attacks that cost 166 lives.
Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, prime accused in the 2008 attack, had said Rana had extended logistical and financial support for the terror operation and in its run-up. Headley had conducted a recce of Mumbai before the attacks by posing as an employee of Rana’s immigration consultancy.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Rana in Chicago in October 2009 — a year after the Mumbai attacks — for providing support for an aborted plan to attack a newspaper in Danish capital Copenhagen and providing material support to Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was responsible for the Mumbai attacks. In 2011, Rana was convicted in the US for conspiracy and was lately lodged at a metropolitan detention centre in Los Angeles.
During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the White House in February, President Donald Trump had announced that his administration has approved the extradition of “very evil” Rana.
“I am pleased to announce that my administration has approved the extradition of one of the plotters and one of the very evil people of the world, having to do with the horrific 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack to face justice in India. So he is going to be going back to India to face justice,” President Trump had said.
The three-day attack that devastated India’s financial capital in 2008 had targeted hotels, a train station and a Jewish center in Mumbai. India has said that Lashkar-e-Taiba orchestrated the attacks. Pakistan’s government has denied any involvement.
