Tahawwur Hussain Rana: 26/11 Mumbai attack accused reaches India after extradition from US

After being extradited from the US, a Pakistan-born Chicago entrepreneur who was wanted in India for his role in the terror attacks in Mumbai capital in 2008 has been brought back to the country.

On Thursday, American national Tahawwur Rana made his landing in Delhi. His abduction was powerful, according to India’s National Investigation Agency.

A US jury found him guilty of supporting a militant group that was responsible for the attacks in 2011 but found him not guilty of a strong role in the plotting the assaults that killed 166 people.

The 64-year-old was released in 2020 on wellbeing premises after serving 14 years in prison in 2013; however, she was rearrested after that time after India’s extradition request was submitted.

A US court approved Rana’s extradition in 2023 but he remained in custody pending a final approval by the country’s government.

In February, President Donald Trump approved the extradition after his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Rana’s claims against the selection were finally rejected by the US Supreme Court.

The two nations ratified the India-US Extradition Treaty in 1997, which allowed for the abduction.

Rana was born and raised in Pakistan and trained in medicine before joining the physician corps of the Muslim army. In 2001, he and his partner, who is also a physician, emigrated to Canada.

Eventually, they relocated to Chicago, where Rana ran a number of companies, including an immigration and go company.

Rana and his childhood friend David Coleman Headley were accused of conspiring in India to aid the militant Lashkar-e-Taiba ( LeT ), which was linked to the Mumbai attacks, by Indian authorities.

A group of ten insurgents shot and threw bombs at a train station, accommodations, shops, and a Jewish center in Mumbai. LeT has been labeled a criminal organization by both India and the US.

According to US prosecutors in the case, Rana authorized Headley to set up an office in Mumbai at his Chicago-based immigration services company in 2006, which he then used as cover to search for the 2008 attacks.

Rana was even accused of allowing Headley to use his false identity to gain access to the newspaper’s practices and to feign interest in purchasing advertising space.

Headley was a key witness in the trial case, who admitted guilt to identifying the sites where the Mumbai attacks took place. He claimed to have connections to ISI and LeT. Pakistan has a history of disproving these claims. Heatley even made accusations against Rana.

Rana’s defense group at the time claimed that Headley, an old colleague from their time in a Muslim military academy, had manipulated and misled him.

Rana was found guilty in 2011 by a jury at the Chicago federal judge for supporting LeT and his involvement in a failed plot against a Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. However, he was spared from the more serious cost of conspiring to orchestrate the attacks in Mumbai and was given a 14-year prison sentence.

Headley was given a 35-year word for his involvement in the problems. He is imprisoned in a Chicago national captivity.

Rana and Headley were allegedly involved in the attacks and were tried in proceedings in a Mumbai judge in India. Hill later changed his mind to approve in the matter.

The Indian National Investigation Agency has brought charges against Rana that include violence, war against the American government, and criminal conspiracy.

In his defense of being extradited to India in the lower judge of the US, Rana claimed that India intended to prosecute him for the same crimes for which he had been cleared by the US judge.

His appeal was rejected, and the court argued that his American charges were distinct from those for which he had been charged in the US.

Rana claimed that the US Supreme Court’s request to be his abduction would be in violation of US law and the UN Convention against Torture “because there are compelling arguments that the applicant is likely to face abuse if extradited to India.”

“The likelihood of torture in this case is even higher though as petitioner faces acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the Mumbai attacks,” the application said.

Rana’s underlying health issues and concerns about the treatment he did get in an American prison were also mentioned. His request was rejected.

Former public prosecutor in Mumbai’s case, Ujjwal Nikam, told ANI reports that Rana’s abduction would help to uncover more about” the presence of Pakistan’s security equipment” in the assaults.