Tahawwur Rana lands in Delhi as Pakistan distances itself from the 26/11 terror accused

NEW DELHI: Tahawwur Rana, a 64-year-old Canadian national of Pakistani origin and one of the key accused in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, landed at Delhi’s Palam airport at 2:50 p.m. on Wednesday, after being extradited from the US.

Rana's extradition marks a watershed moment in India’s 17-year pursuit of justice for the deadly 26/11 attacks that left 166 people dead.

Rana's arrival, cloaked in a dense security blanket, comes just hours after Pakistan’s Foreign Office issued a carefully worded video statement distancing itself from him.

The statement declared that Rana had not renewed any Pakistani documentation in the last two decades and that his Canadian nationality was "very clear."

Sources in India’s intelligence establishment believe the Pakistani Foreign Office’s abrupt distancing is no coincidence. Rana, they assert, holds vital knowledge of Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus and its hand in orchestrating the Mumbai attacks.

His known ties to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Army make him a potential mine of damning testimony that could expose the state’s role in the 26/11 attacks.

“Pakistan fears Rana will spill the beans... this sudden disavowal is nothing but strategic panic,” said a senior counter-terror official.

Rana’s extradition is the culmination of a lengthy legal and diplomatic struggle that saw Indian authorities pressing the United States under the 1997 India-US Extradition Treaty. After years of litigation, the US Supreme Court dealt the final blow to Rana’s attempts to evade deportation by rejecting his plea for a stay.

In a blunt order, the apex court ruled, “The application for stay addressed to the Chief Justice and referred to the Court is denied.”

Rana's lawyers had pleaded that extraditing him would violate the UN Convention Against Torture due to his Pakistani-Muslim background and the politically sensitive nature of the case. The court, however, found the arguments unconvincing.

Rana is to be produced before a special court at Patiala House, where the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is expected to seek his custody. The court appearance is scheduled later in the evening, with multiple security layers put in place to avoid any untoward incident.

Authorities have yet to finalise Rana’s place of incarceration, with both Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail and Delhi’s Tihar Prison being considered. Jail authorities in both cities have been instructed to prepare high-security cells.

In a late-night notification, Centre has appointed advocate Narender Mann as special public prosecutor for conducting trial and other matters related to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) case RC-04/2009/NIA/DLI (Mumbai attacks) for three years.

"In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 15 of the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008 (34 of 2008), read with sub-section (8) of section 18 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), the central government hereby appoints Narender Mann, advocate as special public prosecutor for conducting trial and other matters related to NIA case RC-04/2009/NIA/DLI on behalf of the National Investigation Agency before the NIA Special Courts at Delhi and Appellate Courts, for a period of three years from the date of publication of this notification or till the completion of trial of the said case, whichever is earlier," the notification said.

Rana's role in the Mumbai attacks stems from his close association with David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani-American operative who conducted reconnaissance missions for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group. While a U.S. jury in 2011 acquitted Rana of direct involvement in the Mumbai carnage, it convicted him in a separate conspiracy to bomb the offices of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

After serving a 14-year prison term in the U.S., Rana was re-arrested in 2020 following India’s renewed extradition request. Now, he faces charges in India ranging from conspiracy to terrorism and murder—charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty under Indian law.

According to intelligence inputs, Rana had visited several Indian cities, including Delhi, Hapur, Agra, Kochi, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai, with his wife Samraz Rana Akhtar in the days leading up to the November 2008 attacks. These visits, investigators believe, were not tourist excursions but part of a larger reconnaissance mission tied to the planned carnage.

“Once we interrogate Rana on Indian soil, we will be able to conclusively establish the purpose of these visits and the operational planning that led to the 26/11 attacks,” said an NIA source.