NEW DELHI: Tahawwur Rana, one of the main plotters of the 2008 Mumbai attack, had contacted David Coleman Headley 231 times during his visits to India ahead of the 26/11 carnage, according to the Indian dossier on him. Rana conducted eight reconnaissance missions and the highest number of calls (66) were made during the final visit before the attack.
According to the dossier, Rana and Headley, along with other operatives, had mapped other targets in India, including National Defence College and India Gate in Delhi and multiple Jewish centres, as part of their plan to carry out spectacular terror attacks. NIA’s chargesheet on him details Rana, along with Headley, Hafeez Saeed, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Ilyas Kashmiri, Sajid Mir and Major Iqbal, among others, had conspired to orchestrate the attack.
Investigation by both India and US confirmed that Rana’s Chicago-based immigration firm – First World Immigration Services, was used as a front to facilitate Headley’s entry into India. Headley and Rana had a thorough discussion about their future plans when they met in US. “As Rana was a deserter from the army, Headley offered to provide assistance through his connection with Major Iqbal,” reads the dossier.
Backed by the ISI, Rana exploited every option available to him to thwart his extradition. He even claimed pleas of double jeopardy/double prosecution which essentially holds that a person cannot be prosecuted twice for same offence. The US court, however, rejected his contention that American judiciary had already tried and acquitted him of charges for which India wanted him. The US court said the crimes he had been charged with in India were different from those for which he was prosecuted in the US. “For example, India’s forgery charges are based in part on conduct that was not charged in the US,” the court observed.
Rana’s 2013 conviction in US, where he was sentenced to 14 years in prison, was for supporting Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba and the terror plot in Denmark. Rana was convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to a plot from Oct 2008 to Oct 2009 to commit murder in Denmark, including a plan to behead employees of Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper which published a cartoon of the Prophet, and throw their heads on streets of Copenhagen, as well as providing material support, from late 2005 to Oct 2009, to Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The website of the US Federal Bureau of Prisons has updated the status against Rana’s name saying he wasn’t in their custody as of Tuesday. Rana’s register number (22829-424) read: “Not in BOP custody as of 04/08/2025.”
A team of officials drawn from Indian agencies in the US was tasked with facilitating his return. Sources said the chief investigating officer, DIG (NIA) Jaya Roy, signed off on the ‘surrender warrant’ Tuesday, following which swift arrangements were made to fly him to Delhi. The team left Wednesday around 6.30am, aiming to complete the journey with a brief pit stop. Incidentally, NIA is headed by Sadanand Date, a Maharashtra cadre IPS officer who, along with other colleagues, had rushed to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus area on the fateful evening of Nov 26, 2008 after the terrorists struck at targets selected by, among others, Rana’s partner in the massacre David Coleman Headley.
Rana’s interrogators, a source said, will aim to get him to divulge details about Pakistani state actors involved in the 26/11 plot, details of ISI network, as well as LeT’s local collaborators and sources of funding. There also seems to be recognition that breaking down a hardened terrorist, especially one motivated by jihad, may not be easy.
“He has already been probed extensively, and cracking him will not be an easy task. He would know where to mislead us and create smokescreens. This will be time-consuming,” said a source in the know.
Rana (64) is learned to have already got his contacts to engage his defence counsel. Due to security reasons, Rana may not be taken to court and his remand proceedings may be held in camera, sources said.
