New Delhi:
Hours after Tahawwur Rana, accused of playing a big role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, was brought to India, fresh images have emerged of US Marshals handing him over to Indian authorities for extradition.
The US Justice Department released photos of Rana, clad in a beige prison-issued uniform and flanked by US Marshals, being delivered into the custody of representatives of the Ministry of External Affairs at a secure location on April 9.
Between November 26 and 29, 2008, ten gunmen trained by the Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) unleashed a wave of coordinated terror across Mumbai.
Photo Credit: US Justice Department
Rana has been accused of playing a role in laying the groundwork for the attacks – not as a trigger-puller, but as an enabler operating in the shadows. Rana allegedly used his Chicago-based immigration business as a front to enable childhood friend and co-conspirator David Coleman Headley – born Daood Gilani – to travel freely to India under fraudulent documents.
Headley, who had received military training from LeT in Pakistan, scouted targets for the attack, conducted video surveillance, and shared detailed reconnaissance reports with LeT operatives.
Photo Credit: US Justice Department
According to an official statement by the US Justice Department, after the Mumbai attacks, in an intercepted conversation, Rana allegedly said the victims “deserved it” and praised the attackers, claiming they deserved Pakistan’s highest military honour, the Nishan-e-Haider.
In 2009, Rana was arrested on charges related to a separate LeT-linked plot targeting a Danish newspaper that had published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. In 2013, a US court convicted Rana of conspiring to support LeT and sentenced him to 14 years in federal prison. David Headley turned informant and pleaded guilty to 12 terrorism charges – including for the Mumbai attacks – and was sentenced to 35 years.
In 2020, India formally requested Rana’s extradition. But the process dragged on for nearly five years as Rana’s lawyers cited poor health and the threat of torture to delay the extradition to India.
On February 27, Rana filed a last-ditch ‘Emergency Application for Stay Pending Litigation’, pleading that his medical conditions – including multiple heart attacks, stage 3 chronic kidney disease, suspected bladder cancer, Parkinson’s disease with cognitive decline, and chronic asthma – effectively made his extradition to India a death sentence.
Rana then escalated the request to the US Supreme Court, but it too was denied after deliberation. On April 9, he was handed over to Indian authorities before landing in India the next day, where he has been remanded to an 18-day anti-terror body National Ivestigation Agency (NIA) custody.
