26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind Tahawwur Rana will be brought to India soon, US court gives green signal

Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman Tahawwur Rana may be brought to India soon. Preparations are underway to hand him over to India through diplomatic procedures. He was involved in the 26/11 Mumbai attack. In August 2024, the US court gave its verdict in this case. The court had approved sending him to India under the India-US extradition treaty. Now the campaign to bring Rana to India soon has intensified.

The US court rejected the petition not to extradite Tahawwur Rana, involved in the Mumbai attack, to India. The court said that India has presented sufficient evidence against Rana. Mumbai Police had included Rana’s name in the chargesheet in the 26/11 attack case. He is accused of being an active member of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The chargesheet said that Tahawwur Rana helped Mumbai attack mastermind David Coleman Headley, who conducted a recce of targets in Mumbai for the attack. The court said that there is a Non Bis in Idem clause in the extradition treaty between India and the US. This applies when the accused has already been convicted or acquitted for the same crime. The charges against Rana in India are different from those leveled in US courts, so the Non Bis in Idem exception does not apply. About a year after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, Rana was arrested by the FBI in Chicago.

Tahawwur Rana and his associate David Coleman Headley together prepared a blueprint for Pakistani terrorists by finding targets for the Mumbai attack. Rana is currently in a Los Angeles jail. Rana has been acquitted of the charges against him in the US, but he was not released from jail due to India’s extradition plea.