Who Is Tahawwur Rana? 26/11 Attacks Accused Pak-Origin Canadian Businessman, David Headley's Childhood Friend

New Delhi: The US government has urged a California court to reject a plea by Tahawwur Rana, a businessman of Pakistani origin and Canadian citizenship, who is an accused in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack and facing extradition to India. A US court had approved the extradition of Rana, who is 62 years old and detained at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Los Angeles, in May. India had sought his provisional arrest with a view to extradite him on June 10, 2020. The Biden Administration had backed and approved sending Rana to India. 

Who Is Tahawwur Rana?

Tahawwur Rana is a childhood friend of Headley, a Pakistani-American and US citizen who was born to a Pakistani father and an American mother. Headley was one of the main plotters of the Mumbai attacks and was sentenced to 35 years in prison by US authorities after his arrest in October 2009. They both studied at the Hasan Abdal Cadet School in Pakistan.

Rana is a former Pakistani Army doctor, who moved to Canada in 1997 and became a Canadian citizen in 2001. He set up an immigration business called "First World Immigration Services" in Chicago.

How Was He Involved In Planning The 26/11 Attacks?

Rana's business also acted as a cover for his childhood friend David Coleman Headley's terrorism-related activities in Mumbai. Rana obtained a business visa to India using Rana's Immigration firm "First World Immigration Service" to visit the country in 2006. Headley was one of the key conspirators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

American authorities nabbed Rana shortly after Headley was apprehended at Chicago's O'Hare airport in October 2009. In 2011, he was found guilty in Chicago of providing material support to the LeT for the India attack as well as supporting the never-implemented plot to attack Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. 

India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) is investigating his role in the 26/11 attacks carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists based in Pakistan in 2008. The NIA has said that it is ready to start proceedings to bring him to India through diplomatic channels.

The 2008 Mumbai terror attacks by 10 Pakistani terrorists killed 166 people, including six Americans, and lasted for more than 60 hours, targeting and murdering people at vital and iconic places of Mumbai.