New Delhi: A team of India’s National Investigation Agency has reached the United States to complete the formalities for the extradition of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, ThePrint has learnt.
This comes days after the US Supreme Court junked Rana’s emergency application to stop his extradition citing fear of torture in Indian prisons, which would violate the terms of the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
Rana, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, has been sought by India for his alleged involvement in the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai in 2008 that claimed the lives of at least 174 people and left more than 300 others injured.
ThePrint had previously reported that the NIA formed a team to carry out the formalities with Indian officials in the United States, and bring Rana via a special flight to India. He is set to face trial in cases charged by the NIA and Mumbai Police.
A former doctor with the Pakistan Army, Rana had migrated to Canada in 1997 and then to the US, where he set up an immigration firm that Indian agencies say was used as a cover for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist David Headley to recce key buildings for the deadly terror attack in Mumbai.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had arrested Rana within less than a year for allegedly providing material support to Headley. While Headley was convicted for his role, Rana was acquitted in 2011 due to a lack of adequate evidence.
However, the duo was convicted for an aborted attack plan on the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten, following which Rana was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment in January 2013.
He was released from prison in June 2020, but was re-arrested the next day based on India’s extradition request. Since then, he has been lodged in a Los Angeles prison.
Rana’s extradition comes after around two-year-long judicial proceedings in the US. It was first cleared by an extradition court in May 2023, which he appealed against at different levels before finally reaching the US Supreme Court’s doorstep in November 2024.
His plea was denied by the Supreme Court in January this year, followed by the rejection of his emergency application Monday, leaving all his options to stop his extradition to India exhausted.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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