Tahawwur Rana not Cooperating, Giving Evasive Replies: Mumbai Police

NEW DELHI:
Mumbai Police on Saturday said that the key conspirator of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Tahawwur Rana was not cooperating with the investigating agencies and giving evasive replies.

The Crime Branch of Mumbai Police has been interrogating Rana in connection with the terror attack that claimed over 166 lives.

A National Investigation Agency (NIA) official said that a team of the Mumbai Police Crime Branch reached its Delhi office, where Rana has been lodged.

Mumbai Police quizzed Rana for around eight hours.

The NIA was interrogating Rana to know about the over three-year groundwork and planning undertaken by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Pakistan spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to execute the Mumbai attack on November 26, 2008.

Rana is being asked about people whose names cropped up in intercepted conversations between the terrorists, their handlers and some ISI functionaries and Harkat-ul Jihadi Islami (HuJI) operatives including Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, Sajjid Majid, Illyas Kashmiri and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi.

Notably, Rana, a former Pakistan Army Medical Corps officer, has expressed his inability to recall issues related to the 17-year-old attack.

Rana is accused of conspiring with David Coleman Headley and operatives of designated terrorist organisations, the LeT and the HuJI, along with other Pakistan-based co-conspirators, to carry out the devastating terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008.

Rana, 64, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin who had been residing in Chicago, was extradited to India and flown to New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on a special flight from Los Angeles.

Rana was arrested by the NIA and sent to 18 days’ custody on April 11.

Rana’s extradition and arrest are being viewed as a significant development in India’s ongoing mission to hold accountable all those involved in the planning and execution of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.