NEW DELHI: With 26/11 mastermind Tahawwur Rana slated to land in India on Wednesday, two jails, one in Delhi and another in Mumbai, were asked to covertly make special arrangements in line with US judiciary recommendations about extradited subjects. He is initially likely to be in custody of NIA for the first few weeks. The exercise was supervised by national security adviser A K Doval, along with officials from the home ministry.
Rana, a Pakistani-Canadian and active member of LeT, had arranged passports for fellow jihadi, Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley, aka Dawood Gilani, to travel to India to select targets for the terror attack that was being hatched by Lashkar in collaboration with ISI, Pakistan’s spy agency. Rana gloated over the deaths in Mumbai on Nov 26, 2008 and said that the jihadis responsible for it should be given Pakistan’s highest posthumous military honours.
So far only Ajmal Kasab, the sole LeT terrorist involved in 26/11 rampage who was nabbed alive, had been prosecuted.
In Feb, US President Donald Trump had confirmed Rana’s extradition to India saying he was pleased to announce that Rana is “going back to India to face justice”.
The extradition was the result of sustained efforts by the Modi govt since 2019. That year in Dec, India had submitted a diplomatic note to the US to extradite Rana. On June 10, 2020, India filed a complaint seeking the provisional arrest of Rana to pave the way for his extradition.
A confidant of ISI’s Major Iqbal who conceptualised the Mumbai attacks, Rana and David Coleman Headley had established the groundwork for the Mumbai attacks, according to documents submitted in US court by both countries.
Rana had personally arrived in Mumbai via Dubai before the attacks to ensure arrangements were precisely executed, say investigators. “He had checked into hotel Renaissance in Powai during his visit to India between Nov 11 and Nov 21 in 2008. The attacks occurred five days after he departed,” states a police document.
According to a justice department document, Rana and Headley were apprehended in 2009 by FBI whilst plotting an assault against a Danish newspaper as well as providing material support, from 2005 to 2009, to Lashkar.
Headley had testified in a US court that in the early summer of 2006, he and two Lashkar members discussed establishing an immigration office in Mumbai as a facade for his surveillance activities. Headley had travelled to Chicago and informed Rana, his longstanding friend since their schooldays in Pakistan, of his assignment to scout potential targets in India.
Such was their understanding that in the late summer of 2009, Rana and Headley agreed that funds that had been provided to Rana could be used to fund Headley’s work in Denmark, and the evidence showed that Rana pretended to be Headley in sending an email to the Danish newspaper.
For Mumbai attacks, Headley obtained approval from Rana, who owned First World Immigration Services in Chicago and elsewhere, to establish a First World office in Mumbai as a cover for his activities. Headley had travelled to India five times between 2007 and 2008 and conducted reconnaissance for the Mumbai attacks – using a five-year visa that Rana had assisted him in obtaining.
“Rana directed an individual associated with First World to prepare documents supporting Headley’s cover story, and advised Headley how to obtain a visa for travel to India,” states the justice department document. Mumbai Police had also discovered email communications between Headley and Rana discussing Major Iqbal.
