Tahawwur Rana's extradition: Pakistan says it has nothing to do with 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused

Pakistan on Thursday asserted that it has nothing to do with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana, who was formally arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Delhi after his extradition from the United States.

According to a report by PTI, Pakistan claimed that Rana is a Canadian national and has not renewed his Pakistani documents for over two decades.

While responding to a question during his weekly press briefing in Islamabad, Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan said, as quoted by PTI, "He is a Canadian national, and as per our record, he has not renewed his Pakistani documents for over two decades."

Rana, born in Pakistan in 1961, served in the Pakistan Army Medical Corps, before migrating in the 1990s to Canada, where he was given citizenship.

The case against Rana

Tahawwur Rana is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley who was one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 attacks. Headley conducted a recce of Mumbai before the attacks by posing as an employee of Rana’s immigration consultancy.

A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege.

Tahawwur Rana was convicted in the US for being part of the banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives and providing material support to the group responsible for the Mumbai attacks.

Rana is accused of plotting the attack and has been extradited from the US to India on Thursday.

After he was extradited to India, the NIA formally arrested him from Delhi's IGI airport. He was escorted to New Delhi by teams of NSG and NIA, comprising senior officials, on a special plane from Los Angeles.

“The NIA investigation team at the airport arrested Rana, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin living primarily in Chicago (US), soon after he emerged from the airplane, after completing all the necessary legal formalities,” said the agency.

With agency inputs.