GUWAHATI: Delhi’s Patiala House Court has remanded Tahawwur Hussain Rana to 18 days of National Investigation Agency (NIA) custody past midnight on Friday, April 11. The decision was delivered by Special NIA Judge Chander Jit Singh following the agency’s request for 20 days to interrogate the accused in connection with the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, according to a BarandBench report.
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Rana, a 64-year-old Canadian-American national of Pakistani origin, was formally arrested by the NIA on April 10 after his arrival in Delhi. He was extradited from the United States following the rejection of his final legal appeal by the US Supreme Court. His deportation came nearly five years after India initiated the process through a diplomatic note on December 4, 2019.
Born in Pakistan in 1961, Rana reportedly served as a doctor in the Pakistani Army before migrating to Canada in the 1990s. He became a Canadian citizen in the early 2000s. Indian agencies allege that he is a long-time associate of David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American terrorist who carried out reconnaissance for the 26/11 attacks and is currently serving a prison sentence in the United States.
Headley, meanwhile, had testified that Rana provided both logistical and financial support for the Mumbai operation, which was planned and executed by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The attacks left 166 people dead and hundreds injured after a group of ten terrorists arrived by sea from Karachi and struck multiple locations across Mumbai on November 26, 2008.
Rana is also suspected of having links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the Pakistani Army, and LeT. Indian officials have indicated that he will be interrogated in connection with these associations. The NIA has stated that he will be held in a high-security cell at Tihar Jail for the duration of his custody.
