Tahawwur Rana’s Extradition to India: NIA to Take Custody, Jails Being Readied

NEW DELHI:
After the US Supreme Court rejected Tahawwur Rana’s petition to stop his extradition to India, he is slated to land in the country on Wednesday, and the NIA is taking his custody.

Sources said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) will bring the 26/11 mastermind, Tahawwur Rana, to India.

It was unclear whether he would be brought to Delhi or Mumbai. However, sources said that he is likely to land in Mumbai, where the 26/11 plan was executed. The sources also said that he would spend the initial few weeks in NIA custody.

Rana is being brought to India to face legal consequences for his role in the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 157 people.

The US Court denied his plea to stop his extradition to India. “Application (…) denied by the Court,” read the Supreme Court docket as updated on Monday.

Rana, a Pakistani-Canadian and member of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), had tried to stop his extradition, citing fears of torture by mentioning a UK case. “A man convicted of money laundering was prevented from being extradited by a London court upholding his fears of torture. If that person could not be extradited to India because he was likely to be tortured, the petitioner is even more likely to be tortured and similarly should not be extradited,” Tillman J. Finley, counsel to Rana, said in the application.

The application was rejected by Justice Elena Kagan in March. Rana went on appeal to Chief Justice John Roberts, and the matter was posted for conference on Friday. The justices’ verdict was posted on Monday.

Rana is wanted in India for helping David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American found guilty by a US jury of scoping out the targets hit by the LeT terrorists in 2008. Although he was acquitted by a US jury of providing material support for the attacks, he was found guilty of two other charges for which he was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison.

Due to failing health in the aftermath of Covid-19, he was ordered to be released from jail. But he was rearrested for extradition to India.

Headley had secured himself a guarantee against extradition in a plea deal with the US authorities. Rana appealed against his extradition, and exhausted his legal options with his appeal to the chief justice being denied.

President Donald Trump had announced his extradition to India during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the White House in February. Rana subsequently went to the Supreme Court to stop his extradition.