The last time Tahawwur Rana visited Mumbai, days before the 26/11 attacks, he stayed at a five-star hotel with his wife. He is likely to renew his acquaintance with the city again, this time spending the nights in a tightly guarded cell.
The key accused in the 2008 case, extradited from the US on Thursday, is expected to be taken around the attack sites in Mumbai as part of the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) efforts to reconstruct the crime scenes, sources in the security establishment said.
The agency, intent on unravelling the broader terror network and logistical planning behind the attacks, might also take the 64-year-old to other places in the country that he is believed to have visited days before the November 26-29, 2008, Mumbai carnage.
Rana is said to have visited Hapur and Agra in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Kochi and Ahmedabad — apart from Mumbai — with his wife Samraz Rana Akhtar between November 13 and November 21, 2008, the sources said. In Mumbai, he apparently stayed in the Taj Hotel, one of the 26/11 targets.
The NIA began Rana’s interrogation on Friday at its headquarters after a Delhi court granted the agency 18 days’ custody of the terror accused, a former Pakistani army doctor who later took Canadian citizenship.
“Rana is likely to be taken to several landmarks in Mumbai that were attacked in 2008 to reconstruct the crime scenes. He could also be taken to other locations in the country that he had visited weeks before the attacks to try and unravel the larger conspiracy,” an NIA official said.
On Thursday night, the agency had told the Delhi court that Rana is believed to have plotted large-scale Mumbai-like attacks in multiple Indian cities.
Indian authorities have cited emails that suggest Rana acted as a conduit between the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI and David Coleman Headley, his childhood friend and US citizen who allegedly carried out reconnaissance for the Mumbai attacks.
Headley, born Daood Gilani, is serving a 35-year sentence in the US, having pleaded guilty to terror charges linked to the Mumbai attacks under a deal that rules out extradition to India. Rana, arrested in the US in 2009 like Headley, was convicted of plotting an aborted terror strike in Copenhagen.
Rana allegedly facilitated Headley’s Mumbai visit by opening a branch of his US firm, First World Immigration Services, in the Maharashtra capital in 2006 and allowing him to pose as its manager.
The US Department of Justice has said Rana personally assisted Headley in submitting visa applications to Indian authorities with fraudulent information and provided cover documents through an unsuspecting business partner.
Rana was allegedly also in touch with operatives of the terror outfits Lashkar-e-Toiba and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami, along with other Pakistan-based co-conspirators behind the Mumbai carnage that killed at least 166 people, including six Americans.
There were more than230 phone calls between Rana and Headley during the American’s series of recce visitsto India between 2006 and 2008, sources said. They added that Rana was in touch witha “Major Iqbal”, another co-conspirator.
Asked whether Rana would be brought to Mumbai, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said the NIA and the Union home ministry would decide where the terror accused would be taken as part ofthe probe.
“Mumbai police will extend all cooperation to the NIA, and if we need any update on the probe, we will seek it from NIA. The NIA will decide where to take him,” Fadnavis told a news conference.
‘Indians deserved it’
Rana said the Indians “deserved it” and extolled the nine Pakistani gunmen killed during the attacks, suggesting they be given Pakistan’s highest gallantry award, a statement issued by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) after the extradition said.
“After the attacks were complete, Rana allegedly told Headley that the Indians ‘deserved it’,” the statement said.
“In an intercepted conversation with Headley, Rana allegedly commended the nine LeT (Lashkar) terrorists who had been killed committing the attacks, saying that they should be given Nishan-e-Haider.”
The DOJ added: “Rana’s extradition is a critical step toward seeking justice for the six Americans and scores of other victims who were killed in the heinous attacks.”