A US court has consented to India’s request for the extradition of Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman Tahawwur Rana to India, where he is sought for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. “The Court … CERTIFIES to the Secretary of State of the United States the extraditability of Rana on the charged offences that are the subject of the Request,” Judge Jacqueline Chooljian, US Magistrate Judge of the US District Court Central District of California, wrote in a 48-page court order dated May 16. India filed a complaint seeking the provisional arrest of 62-year-old Rana with a view towards extradition in June 2020. He is a childhood friend of David Coleman Headley, convicted by a US Court for his role in the Mumbai attacks. During court hearings, the US government attorneys argued that Rana was aware of Headley’s involvement with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and that by assisting him and affording him cover for his activities, he was supporting the terrorist organisation and its associates. He was first arrested by the FBI in 2009. Rana is one of the many individuals implicated for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Here are some of the notable names. David Headley David Coleman Headley, an American citizen of partly Pakistani descent, is currently serving a 35 years long prison sentence in the United States after pleading guilty to 12 counts of international terrorism. He admitted to having attended multiple LeT training camps in Pakistan between 2002 and 2005, after which he was given the task of carrying out surveillance in Mumbai to prepare for the attacks. Between 2006 and 2008, Headley made five extended trips to Mumbai, pretending to be an American businessman and making videotapes of various potential targets, and relaying the information to Lashkar members in Pakistan. He visited India once again in 2009 to conduct surveillance in other cities. Apart from the Mumbai attacks, Headley is also implicated in the foiled Denmark terror plot. He was arrested from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in 2009. Headley was also allegedly an informer for the US’s Drug Enforcement Agency. Hafiz Saeed Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is the co-founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist terrorist organisation which conducted the Mumbai attacks. He has been arrested multiple times since 2008 but never faced any punishment for the attacks, which he denies having any role in. In 2019, he was arrested and sentenced to 15-years imprisonment by Pakistani authorities on terror financing charges. In 2022, a court sentenced him to another 31 years in prison on two more terror financing charges. He is currently serving his sentences in the Kot Lakhpat jail, Lahore. Saeed is also implicated in multiple other terror attacks, starting from the attack on the Indian parliament in 2001. He remains in the NIA’s Most Wanted list and there is a bounty of $ 10 million on his head placed by the US government. Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi Widely hailed as the mastermind behind the Mumbai terror attacks, Lakhvi is currently serving 3 concurrent five-year prison sentences in Pakistan, where he was arrested for terror financing in 2021. As per Indian authorities, Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman from the 26/11 attacks told interrogators that he and his fellow assailants were in touch with Lakhvi, reportedly LeT’s chief of operations. This claim is corroborated by the US State Department which too accuses Lakhvi of being a mastermind in the attacks and running terrorist camps in Pakistan. A UN Security Council sanctions committee has accused Lakhvi of being involved in militant activity in a number of other regions and countries, including Chechnya, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. While he is currently in prison, he is yet to be tried for his hand in the Mumbai attacks. Sajid Mir A senior member of LeT, Mir is a Pakistani national who is said to have been the chief planner of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. In 2022, a Pakistan court convicted him of terror financing and sentenced him to 15 years of imprisonment. Initially, Pakistan had denied the very existence of Mir. Later, it acknowledged his existence but claimed he was dead before finally arresting him. Sajid Mir was the man who recruited David Headley and tasked him with the surveillance missions. He is said to have prepared miniature models of the Taj Hotel and other sites during the attacks to train the recruited terrorists. He reportedly visited India in 2005 under the pretext of watching a cricket match. In 2022, India released an audio tape of Mir in which he is heard directing the terrorists to “shoot anyone they see”. There have been allegations that Mir was, in fact, a regular in the Pakistani Army. Abu Hamza Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari aka Abu Hamza or Abu Jindal was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2016 by a special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court in the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case. Hailing from Beed district in Maharashtra, Hamza joined LeT in the early 2000s and trained in camps located in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. During the Mumbai attacks, he was present in a Karachi control room along with LeT supremo Hafiz Saeed. He served as the handler of the 10 LeT terrorists and was also their Hindi tutor. In 2012, he was deported to India from Saudi Arabia and promptly arrested from the airport in Delhi. His subsequent confessions revealed that the attack was originally scheduled in 2006 but was thwarted after a cache of AK-47s and and RDX was found by authorities. His arrest has been deemed by Indian authorities as the most significant since that of Ajmal Kasab, as he was integrally involved in planning for the attacks. Ajmal Kasab and the terrorists on ground Ten gunmen from Pakistan rained terror across Mumbai from November 26 to November 29. The terrorists were recruited by the LeT and trained in marine warfare at a remote camp in the mountainous areas of Muzaffarabad, Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Of the ten terrorists sent to Mumbai, nine were killed during operations. The only one to be captured alive was then 21-year old Ajmal Kasab. Kasab along with his partner killed 72 people, mostly in the busy Chhatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus. Kasab would go on to provide vital intelligence to authorities about how the attack was planned and executed, also shedding light on Pakistan’s role in the plot. Kasab was convicted based on CCTV footage showing him striding across the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus with an AK-47 and a backpack. He was hanged in Pune’s Yerawada Jail in 2012.
