'Tahawwur Rana helped David Headley get 10-year visa, contacted Pak Major Iqbal before 26/11 Mumbai attack'

The National Investigation Agency was granted 18-day custody of Tahawwur Rana, a key conspirator of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks during the early hours of Friday. Rana, who has been lodged in the national agency’s headquarters in Delhi, was extradited from the US on Tuesday.

 

A special plane with Rana onboard landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport on Thursday night and investigators here ‘formally arrested’ the terror mastermind immediately after his arrival. Rana was produced before the special court for hearing NIA cases and special judge Chander Jit Singh, granting NIA’s request, sent him to 18-day custody. The national agency had sought 20-day custody of Rana. A senior counsel from Delhi Legal Services Authority, Piyush Sachdeva represented Rana in court. The lawyer said there shouldn’t be public outrage against him as they were only doing their duty.

 

Rana, a key conspirator of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack helped David Coleman Headley, the mastermind of the attacks to get an India visa and conduct a recce of targets. A senior police officer from Mumbai who is familiar with the probe said Rana, who was working as a doctor with the Pakistan Army, emigrated to Canada in the late 1990s and started an immigration consultancy firm.

 

He later started an office in Chicago and gave cover to Headley to carry out reconnaissance mission in Mumbai prior to the November 2008 attacks. Rana also helped Headley to get a ten-year visa extension, the senior officer said.

 

 

“During his stay in India, Headley used the front of running an immigration business and was in regular contact with Rana.  There were more than 230 phone calls between the two during this period. Rana was also in touch with `Major Iqbal', another co-conspirator of the attacks during this period,” as per the NIA charge sheet.

 

According to the charge-sheet filed by Mumbai police against Rana in 2023, Rana had stayed in a hotel in Powai, and had a discussion about crowded places in South Mumbai with a ‘witness’ in the case. Some of these locations were targeted during the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. According to police, Headley had scouted the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, Leopold Cafe, Chabad House and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus ahead of the attacks.

 

India