Days after the US Supreme Court rejected a review petition filed by Tahawwur Rana, wanted in India for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, the Indian government said Friday that it is working with the Americans on “procedural issues” for his “early extradition”. This is New Delhi’s first confirmation that work is underway to bring Rana back to face trial in the 2008 terror attacks that killed 166 people. He is currently lodged in a detention centre in Los Angeles. “The US Supreme Court on 21 January 2025 declined to hear a petition from the accused (Rana). We are now working with the US side on procedural issues for early extradition to India of the accused in the Mumbai terror attack,” Randhir Jaiswal, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said. On November 13 last year, Rana had filed a “petition for a writ of certiorari” — essentially a process to seek review of a lower court order — before the US Supreme Court, arguing that he was tried and acquitted in a federal court in the Northern District of Illinois on charges related to the Mumbai attacks and cannot be sent to India for a second trial on the same charges. With the rejection of his plea paving way for his extradition to India, sources had told The Indian Express that a team of four officers of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) will be going to the US to complete the formalities for his extradition. The Delhi Prisons Department had also started making arrangements in a high-security ward of Tihar jail for Rana’s stay, it is learned.
