Tahawwur Rana finally charged in India, even as Pakistan disowns ‘Canadian citizen’

Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who was successfully extradited to the country from the US on Thursday, 10 April, will now face the law in India.

He was "formally arrested immediately after his arrival at Delhi airport", the National Investigation Agency (NIA) announced.

His interrogation is likely to spill the beans on the role of Pakistani state actors behind the act of terrorism that claimed 166 lives in 2008, official sources said.

The investigators also hope to find some important leads on his travels in parts of northern and southern India, days before the carnage in the country's financial capital in November 2008, they said.

Rana visited Hapur and Agra in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Kochi, Ahmedabad and Mumbai with his wife Samraz Rana Akhtar between 13 and 21 November 2008, the sources said.

They said there could have been a larger conspiracy aimed at targeting other places across the country behind his visits to these places and the exact details would be ascertained only after his interrogation.

Rana (64), a Pakistani-origin Canadian national, was brought from the Los Angeles on a special flight by a multi-agency team comprised of officials from Indian law enforcement agencies and senior government functionaries, the sources said.

Rana's extradition came as the US Supreme Court recently denied his application challenging it.

Rana, who was lodged at a metropolitan detention centre in Los Angeles, is known to be associated with Pakistani–American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

Rana's interrogation would help the probe agencies expose the role of Pakistani state actors behind the 26/11 attacks, and may shed new light on the investigation, the sources said.

On 26 November 2008, a group of 10 Pakistani terrorists went on a rampage, carrying out coordinated attacks on a railway station, two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre after sneaking into Mumbai via the Arabian Sea.

Among the 166 people killed were US, British and Israeli nationals. The nearly 60-hour assault sent shockwaves across the country and even brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

The terrorists targeted multiple iconic locations in Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, Leopold Cafe, Chabad House and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station, each of which Headley had scouted in advance.

In November 2012, Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist among the Pakistani attackers, was hanged to death at Yerawada Jail in Pune.

Rana was wanted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the 26/11 attacks case.

During the investigation, the roles of senior functionaries of terror outfits Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul Jihadi Islami (HuJI) — Hafiz Muhammad Saeed alias Tayyaji, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Sajjid Majid alias Wasi, Illyas Kashmiri and Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Major Abdurrehman alias Pasha — had emerged, the sources said.

They worked in active connivance with officials from Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), namely Major Iqbal alias Major Ali and Major Sameer Ali alias Major Samir, per the NIA.

After the completion of its investigation, the NIA filed a chargesheet before a Delhi court on 24 December 2011 against all the accused under Section 120 B (criminal conspiracy), read with 121, 121A, 302, 468 and 471 of the IPC and Sections 16,18 and 20 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for providing logistic, financial and other assistance to Headly and the other co-conspirators towards the criminal conspiracy to organise terrorist attacks in India.

The NIA also sent extradition requests to the US for the extradition of Headley and Rana, the sources said.

Rana is said to have remained in contact with Major Iqbal, the sources said.

During his first visit to India, Headley spoke to Rana over phone for more than 32 times, they said. Subsequently, Headley spoke to Rana 23 times during his second visit, 40 times during the third visit, 37 times during the fifth visit, 33 times during the sixth visit, and 66 times during the eighth visit, they said, highlighting his active involvement in the Mumbai attacks conspiracy.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US arrested Rana from Chicago a year after the attacks in October 2009 for providing support for an aborted plan to behead employees of a newspaper in Copenhagen (Denmark), and also for providing material support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which orchestrated the Mumbai attacks, the sources said, adding that Rana, however, was acquitted in the 26/11 case.

India has been trying to extradite Rana for many years because of his association with the LeT, HuJI and Headley, and for his active involvement in the Mumbai attacks.

It is alleged that Rana was aware of Headley's terror links and even helped in reconnaissance of targets in Mumbai and planning the attacks on the National Defence College (NDC) in Delhi and the Chabad House in Mumbai.

The extradition of Rana was first cleared by the US Supreme Court in January, when it rejected his review petition in the case.

Rana submitted an "emergency application for stay pending litigation of petition for writ of habeas corpus" on 27 February 2025, with an associate justice of the US Supreme Court and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit, Elena Kagan.

Kagan denied the application in March.

Rana then renewed his emergency application previously addressed to Justice Kagan, and requested that the renewed application be directed to US chief justice John Roberts.

The Supreme Court denied his application on 7 April.

Pakistan, meanwhile, declared on Thursday said that it has nothing to do with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused, asserting that Rana is a Canadian national and has not renewed his Pakistani documents for over two decades.

Born in Pakistan in 1961, Rana had served in the Pakistan Army Medical Corps, however, before migrating in the 1990s to Canada, where he was given citizenship.

"He is a Canadian national and as per our record he has not renewed his Pakistani documents for over two decades," Pakistan's foreign office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan asserted while responding to a question during his weekly press briefing in Islamabad.

Though the spokesperson stopped short of providing details of the "documents" in question, such documents often include a national identity card for overseas Pakistanis and a passport.

With PTI inputs