Tahawwur Rana was charged in 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks and could be extradited to India “shortly”: Report

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a plea accused of the 26/11 Mumbai attack, and Tahawwur Rana seeks to stay with him for extradition to India. |Picture source: ANI

Sources said Tahawwur Rana is accused of terrorist attacks in Mumbai. It is expected to be extradited from the United States to India “soon.”

According to government sources in India, a multi-institutional team from India has gone to the United States and the U.S. authorities are completing all paperwork and legitimacy.

Also Read | U.S. Supreme Court denies Tahawwur Rana’s application seeks extradition to India

Sources said it is likely that Rana will be extradited soon. It was also learned that Rana did not come to India on Wednesday and the extradition process was underway.

This huge development took place just days after Rana’s last attempt to escape the failure of extradition in India after the U.S. Supreme Court Justice denied his application, bringing him closer to being handed over to Indian authorities to face justice in a mean attack.

Rana, 64, currently at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, filed an “emergency application for a lawsuit requesting a writ of habeas proof” for the U.S. Supreme Court and the Circuit Judicial Official Justice on February 27, 2025.

Judge Kagan denied the application earlier last month.

Rana then renewed his “emergency application to pending petition lawsuit for a habeas order previously introduced to Justice Kagan and requested a re-application to target U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts.

The order on the Supreme Court website states that Rana’s application for updates was “distributed as a meeting” on April 4 and that the “application” has been “referred to the court.” The notice on the Supreme Court website said Monday that the “court rejected the application.”

New York-based Indian-American attorney Ravi Batra told pti Rana filed an application to the Supreme Court to prevent extradition, which Judge Kagan denied on March 6. The application was then filed with Roberts, “who shared the meeting with the court to capitalize on the perspective of the entire court.”

Read also | 26/11 accused Tahawwur Rana said he would suffer from torture if sent to India

The Supreme Court Justice is Deputy Justice Clarence Thomas and Deputy Justice Samuel A. Alito

In his urgent application, Rana seeks extradition and surrenders to India to await lawsuits (including exhaustion of all appeals), his merits.

In this petition, Rana argued that his introduction to India violated U.S. law and the UN Convention against Torture because it was believed that if extraditioned to India, petitioners would be at risk of torture. ”

“In this case, the possibility of torture is even higher, although the petitioner faces acute risks of the alleged Pakistani origin in the Mumbai attack,” the application said.

The application also stated that in this case, his “severe medical condition” made Indian detention centers extradition “de facto” death penalty. It cites medical records starting in July 2024, confirming that Rana has multiple “acute and life-threatening diagnoses” including multiple recorded heart attacks, Parkinson’s disease, cognitive decline, suggesting a history of bladder cancer, stage 3 chronic kidney disease, and chronic asthma, and multiple Covid-199 infections.

“The petitioner, therefore, certainly raised a trustworthy fact, if not convincing fact, does have substantial reasons to believe that if surrender to the Indian authorities, he would be in danger of torture. In addition, due to his Muslim religion, his Pakistani origin, his status, his identity is more likely to be the predecessor of the Pakistani army, his identity may be within territory, this is a possible relationship between human relations, his relationship may be in 2008, and his attitude may occur in time. The torture situation will be more than other situations, and torture is likely to kill him in the short term.”

Rana is the origin of the Canadian national Pakistani, associated with Pakistan-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 attacks.

Donald Trump announced in February at the White House joint press conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that his administration has approved extradition of “very evil “Lana” to face India’s justice.”

In the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, there were 166 people, including six Americans, of which 10 Pakistani terrorists suffered more than 60 hours of attack, attacking and killing people at iconic and important locations in Mumbai.