New Delhi: Following successful extradition from the United States, National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday evening formally arrested Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the key conspirator in the deadly 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, immediately after his arrival at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) Delhi, officials said.
NIA had secured Rana’s extradition following years of sustained and concerted efforts and after the terror mastermind’s last-ditch efforts to get a stay on his extradition from the US failed.
He was escorted to New Delhi by teams of National Security Guard (NSG) and NIA, comprising senior officials, on a special plane from Los Angeles, United States. 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.
With the coordinated efforts of India’s Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs, along with the relevant authorities in the United States, NIA has worked closely with other Indian intelligence agencies through the entire extradition process, which marked a major step in India’s efforts to bring individuals involved in terrorism to justice, irrespective of which part of the world they had fled to.
Rana was being held in judicial custody in the US pursuant to proceedings initiated by the NIA under the India-US Extradition Treaty. The extradition finally came through after Rana’s various litigations and appeals, including an emergency application before the U.S. Supreme Court, were rejected with the active assistance of U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, U.S. Marshals Service, FBI’s Legal Attache Office in New Delhi, and U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Legal Adviser for Law Enforcement.