NEW DELHI: “Mujahideen involved in the Mumbai attacks should receive Pakistan’s highest posthumous military honors,” reads a transcript of an intercepted conversation that Tahawwur Frog had with David Coleman Headley. The disturbing transcripts were cited by the US Department of Justice as crucial evidence in Rana’s sentencing order back in 2013.
A doctor, an immigration businessman, a hardline radical with a deep-rooted hatred towards India and a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist who manages the group’s finances – Tahawwur Rana has many faces. He was a confidant of ISI Major Iqbal who was planning the audacious maritime terror attack in Mumbai that was seen by the then government as an undeclared war by Pakistan and had triggered demands for retaliation.
Rana, along with Headley, laid the groundwork for the Mumbai attacks, which were the deadliest in a series of terrorist attacks organized by the ISI through groups such as Lashkar and the Indian Mujahideen. Rana had arrived in Mumbai via Dubai before the attacks to ensure the arrangements were executed precisely, investigators say. “He had stayed at the Renaissance Hotel in Powai during his visit to India between November 11 and 21, 2008. The attacks occurred five days after his departure,” a police document states.
With the conditions clear for Rana’s extradition, India’s efforts since 2019 have finally yielded results. Although 16 years have passed, the gruesome memories of the deadliest terror attack, which had put the Indian security establishment to sleep, remain an impediment to normalization of ties with Pakistan.