Long arm of law eventually catches up with 26/11 plotter Tahawwur Rana

The proverbial long arm of the law has eventually caught up with Pakistani-Canadian businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the co-conspirator of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 165 people and wounded over 300 in 2008.

The extradition of Rana, wanted in India for helping childhood friend, Pakistan-American David Coleman Headley found guilty by a US jury of scoping out the targets hit by Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) terrorists in 2008, is a result of untiring efforts made by Indian security agencies over the past decade and spotlights the country's rising stature along with its negotiating power on the global stage.

Although he was acquitted by a US jury of providing material support for the attacks, Rana was found guilty of two other charges for which he was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison.

Due to failing health in the aftermath of the Covid-19 epidemic, he was ordered to be released from jail but rearrested for extradition to India.

Headley, on the other hand, had secured himself a guarantee against extradition in a plea deal with US authorities.

Earlier this week, the US Supreme Court rejected Rana's petition to stop his extradition to India to face legal consequences for his role in the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

Rana had been in a US prison in Los Angeles for plotting a terror attack on Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Though the Chicago court in the US had held him guilty in 2011 for supporting Lashkar, the globally banned terror group, it had acquitted him in the Mumbai terror attacks case.

However, in 2013, India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) charged Rana, in absentia, in a Delhi court and sentenced him to 14 years in jail.

Since then, the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi intensified efforts to get him extradited to India.

Investigators in India always believed that Rana is a "bigger catch" than Headley and his extradition to India will be a huge success for India's counter-terror grid.

Rana and Headley were arrested in the US in 2009 for plotting attacks on the offices of the Danish newspaper, which had published cartoons of Prophet Mohammad.

Born in 1961, Rana, a former doctor who served in the Pakistani Army, had immigrated to Canada and turned into an immigration service businessman. Before the terror attacks, he had travelled to Mumbai and stayed at the Taj Hotel, one of the dozen places the Lashkar suicide squad attacked in a coordinated manner on November 26, 2008.

His friend David Coleman Headley (born Dawood Sayed Gilani) had pleaded guilty in the Mumbai terror attacks case and was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison in 2013. But his plea that he should not be extradited to India, Pakistan or Denmark was accepted by the US court.

In February, during Prime Minister Modi's landmark visit to Washington, US President Donald Trump's declaration to extradite Rana to India was widely welcomed and seen as the United States standing behind the country in its fight against acts of terror, mostly emanating from Pakistan.

Trump, during a joint presser with PM Modi said, "I am pleased to announce that my administration has approved the extradition of one of the plotters and one of the very evil people of the world. A key accused of the horrific 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, he will be going back to India to face justice".

Interestingly, the acquittal of terrorist Rana in 2011 by a Chicago court was called out by PM Modi while he was serving as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

"How can courts in America give judgment for a terrorist attack that happened in India? Would they allow the trial of 9/11 accused in India?" PM Modi had asked then, warning that such actions could be exploited by other terror elements across the world to evade justice, leading to a dangerous precedent.

After Rana's acquittal by the US court in 2011, the then Gujarat CM had also slammed the UPA government for mishandling Rana's case, leading to his reprieve.