- By Anushka Vats
- Wed, 01 Jan 2025 12:22 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian-Pakistani citizen and an accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks could be extradited from the United States to India soon and the process to bring him to India is also underway, reported the Economic Times.
In August 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Tahawwur Rana should be extradited to India, citing the extradition treaty currently in place between the two countries.
Tahawwur Rana, 63, was a childhood friend of David Headley. Headley, a US citizen with an American mother and a Pakistani father, was arrested by US authorities in October 2009 and later sentenced to 35 years in prison for his involvement in the Mumbai 26/11 attacks.
Rana, originally from Pakistan, faced trial in a US district court for providing support to a terrorist organisation responsible for the major terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
Tahawwur Rana Background: He attended the Hasan Abdal Cadet School in Pakistan, where Headley also studied for five years. After serving as a doctor in the Pakistan Army, Rana moved to Canada, where he became a Canadian citizen. He later started a consultancy firm called First World Immigration Services in Chicago.
The Mumbai branch of this business provided Headley with an ideal facade to identify and keep watch on potential targets for the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
On November 26, 2008, during the 26/11 attacks, ten Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists infiltrated Mumbai, plunging the city into terror for three consecutive days.
Tahawwur Rana ARrest: Mumbai Police in its chargesheet has named Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman Tahawwur Rana in the 405-page chargesheet in connection with the 26/11 attacks. Rana is accused of being an operative of ISI and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
In the chargesheet, Rana is accused of supporting the 26/11 attacks' mastermind David Coleman Headley, who conducted the recce of the Mumbai attacks.
Rana was arrested less than a year after 26/11 terror attack by FBI in Chicago. The accused terrorist was operating a travel agency in Chicago 15 years ago, when he and his friend David Coleman Headley, scouted Mumbai locations and landing zones to carry out the attack.
