Canadian wanted over 2008 Mumbai attacks arrives in India after US extradition
Sign up now: Get insights on Asia's fast-moving developments
Indian security personnel patrolling on April 10 outside the National Investigation Agency headquarters in New Delhi, where Mumbai attacks suspect Tahawwur Rana is expected to be brought.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
NEW DELHI – A Pakistani-born Canadian businessman accused of helping to orchestrate the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, one of India's deadliest, arrived in New Delhi on April 10 after the US extradited him in the first such transfer in a terrorism case.
Tahawwur Rana, 64, a doctor-turned-businessman, was extradited in connection with the November 2008 attacks that killed more than 160 people.
“The National Investigation Agency on Thursday successfully secured the extradition... after years of sustained and concerted efforts to bring the key conspirator... to justice,” said India’s anti-terror National Investigation Agency.
He was accompanied back by Indian security agencies after his petitions challenging the extradition were rejected by the US Supreme Court.
Rana’s extradition is a “great success” of the Modi government’s diplomacy, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah said on April 9.
“It is the responsibility of the Indian government to bring back all those who have abused the land and people of India,” he posted on X.
Trump announced transfer
India formally sought Rana’s custody in June 2020, and US President Donald Trump announced Rana’s transfer in February 2025 during a joint press conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington.
Rana was sentenced to 14 years in prison in the US in 2013 for providing support to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani Islamist group that India says was responsible for the 2008 attacks.
“As far as our record indicates, he (Rana) did not even apply for renewal for his Pakistani-origin documents for the last two decades,” Mr Shafqat Ali Khan, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, said at a media briefing on April 10.
People lighting candles in Mumbai on Nov 26, 2021, to mark the 13th anniversary of the 2008 terror attacks in the Indian city.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Rana’s lawyer has said that Rana was a “good man and got sucked into something”.
Over the course of three days in November 2008, 10 heavily armed attackers targeted major landmarks across Mumbai, including two luxury hotels, a Jewish centre and the main train station, killing 166 people.
India has said Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the US State Department has designated a terrorist organisation, orchestrated the attacks. Pakistan denies supporting extremist activities.
Rana was also found guilty in June 2011 of conspiring to attack a Danish newspaper, a plot hatched by the militant group that was never carried out. REUTERS
