Tahawwur Hussain Rana (2L) in Delhi airport. (Photo: NIA/Handout)
New Delhi: The United States on Wednesday extradited convicted terrorist Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen and native of Pakistan, to stand trial in India on 10 criminal charges for his role in the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Indian and US officials escorted Rana under their custody and landed in a US military plane here in the national capital on Thursday, as India Sentinels reported.
In a news release, the US Department of Justice described Rana’s extradition as “a critical step toward seeking justice for the six Americans and scores of other victims who were killed in the heinous attacks.”
The justice department highlighted that Rana, a 64-year-old Canadian citizen and native of Pakistan, faces 10 criminal charges in India, including conspiracy, murder, commission of terrorist acts and forgery stemming from his alleged involvement in the attacks that killed more than 160 people.
The department outlined allegations that Rana facilitated a “fraudulent cover” for his childhood friend David Coleman Headley to conduct surveillance of potential attack sites in Mumbai for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a designated foreign terrorist organization.
“India alleges that Rana facilitated a fraudulent cover so that his childhood friend David Coleman Headley, a US citizen born Daood Gilani, could freely travel to Mumbai for the purpose of conducting surveillance of potential attack sites for LeT,” the release stated.
The US justice department also recounted the Mumbai attacks, noting that between November 26 and 29, 2008, 10 LeT terrorists carried out 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks after infiltrating the city by sea. The department described how attackers targeted a train station, restaurants, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, and a Jewish community centre, resulting in 166 deaths.
The release also detailed the five-year legal battle preceding the extradition, which began in June 2020 when the United States acted on India’s request. It chronicled how Rana’s challenges were rejected at multiple levels of the US judicial system, culminating in the US supreme court’s denial of his final appeal on April 7, 2025.
The US department confirmed some media reports that said the US Marshals Service surrendered Rana to Indian authorities on April 9, completing the extradition process.
The department noted that Rana was previously convicted in US federal court in 2013 and sentenced to 14 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to LeT and to a terrorist plot in Copenhagen, Denmark.
