NEW DELHI: Tahawwur Hussain Rana’s possible extradition from the US in connection with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks could provide important leads into his travels in parts of north and south India days before the carnage in 2008, officials said.
US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that his administration has approved Rana’s extradition to India, referring to him as “one of the plotters and very evil people of the world”. Once extradited, Rana would be the third person to be sent on trial in India in the case after Ajmal Kasab and Zabiuddin Ansari, alias Abu Jundal. In November 2012, Kasab, the lone surviving Pakistan terrorist, was hanged to death in Pune’s Yerawada Jail.
Arrested by the FBI on October 27, 2009, Rana was chargesheeted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in 2011 under several Sections of the IPC and Section 6(2) of the SAARC Convention on Suppression of Terrorism.
While tracking the mastermind of the 2008 terror attack case David Coleman Headley’s footsteps in India, security agencies had found that Rana had visited Hapur, Delhi, Agra, Kochi, Ahmedabad and Mumbai with his wife Samraz Rana Akhtar between November 13 and November 21, 2008. Rana had submitted sponsor letter from ‘Immigrant Law Center’ and property tax payment notice from the Cook County as his address proof. The officials said once Rana is extradited, the purpose of these visits would be established.