In a statement, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said that Tahawwur Rana, in an intercepted conversation, told Headley that ‘Indians deserved it’ after the 26/11Mumbai attacks.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, one of the key accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, has been extradited to India to face trial over his alleged involvement. Rana, a close associate of David Coleman Headley, alias Daood Gilani, one of the main conspirators of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, served in the Pakistan Army Medical Corps before before emigrating to Canada in the late 1990s and started an immigration consultancy firm. He later moved to the US and set up an office in Chicago.
The extradition plane carrying Rana landed at the Delhi airport on Thursday, and he was produced before a special court by the agency. Special NIA judge Chander Jit Singh sent him to 18-day custody.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ), in a statement, said that after the coordinated attacks on India’s financial capital, Rana told Headley that Indians “deserved” it. The DoJ added that in an “intercepted conversation with Headley, Rana allegedly commended the nine LeT terrorists who had been killed committing the attacks, saying that “[t]hey should be given Nishan-e-Haider.”
While security forces had eliminated nine terrorists during the attack, Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist among the Pakistani group that attacked, was hanged to death in 2012.
After securing his custody, the NIA took Rana to its headquarters early Friday in a heavily secured motorcade comprising Delhi Police’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) and other security personnel.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a key accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case, had helped co-conspirator David Coleman Headley to obtain an Indian visa, a Mumbai police official familiar with the probe said.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday evening formally arrested Rana following his extradition from the United States.
(With agency inputs)