NIA explores Tahawwur Rana’s personal connection with Dubai, who knows the 2008 Mumbai attack

Security outside the House Court of Patiala after Tahawwur Rana held a hearing in New Delhi on April 11, 2025. Image source: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap

Sources said on Saturday (April 12, 2025) that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has questioned the attack on Mumbai for the second consecutive day of the year to investigate the larger conspiracy of the 2008 terrorist attack.

They said Rana is being investigated by a team of NIA officials to determine the exact role behind the attacks that hit the nation 16 years ago.

Rana is said to be based on a grill for various potential clients collected by the investigative agency during the investigation, including a large number of calls from him and his accomplice, David Coleman Headley, who is currently in prison in the country.

Sources said he will also ask questions about the individuals he encountered, especially the main contacts allegedly in Dubai, who is said to be aware of plans for a Mumbai terrorist attack.

Rana was taken to the NIA headquarters after the Delhi court approved 18 days of custody to the investigative agency after the U.S. extradition from the U.S.

Sources said he was kept in a highly secure cell, guarded by security personnel around the clock within the headquarters of the CGO complex in New Delhi.

The 64-year-old Pakistani Canadian businessman will also be experiencing suspected contacts with officials of Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Interveence (ISI) and contacts with the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), who planned the attack.

They said investigators also hope to find some important potential clients in northern India and parts of southern India just days before the country’s financial capital massacre on November 26, 2008.

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“Lana will be in NIA detention for 18 days, during which the agency will ask him in detail to reveal the complete conspiracy behind the 2008 deadly 2008 attack, with a total of 166 people killed and more than 238 injured,” the probe agency said in a statement from the probe agency early Friday morning.

The Counter-terrorism agency produced Rana in the NIA special court in Patiala House after he was formally arrested after he was extradited from the United States after he was formally arrested after he arrived at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport on Thursday night.

The NIA claimed in court that it suspected that Rana designed a horror plot similar to the 26/11 Mumbai attack to target multiple Indian cities.

The court also directed the NIA to conduct medical examinations on RANA every 24 hours and allowed him to meet with the lawyers every day.

Rana is charged with a number of crimes, including conspiracy, murder, commission of terrorist acts and forgery in the country.

After the case registration was conducted in 2009, the NIA investigation found the role of senior staff members of another Pakistan-based terrorist group Harkat-ul Jihad Islam (Huji).