In a courtroom that stayed awake past midnight, Delhi’s Patiala House Court handed over Tahawwur Hussain Rana—accused of aiding one of India’s deadliest terror attacks—to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for 18 days of custody.
Rana’s arrival in Delhi earlier in the day wasn’t ordinary—it was preceded by a long extradition battle that ended with him being deported from the United States. Once his feet touched Indian soil, the NIA moved swiftly, arresting him and presenting him before a special court late into the night.
The agency had sought 20 days to interrogate the 63-year-old, but the court settled on 18.
Rana’s background reads like the pages of a thriller: born in Pakistan in 1961, once a doctor in the Pakistani Army, later a migrant to Canada where he became a citizen in the early 2000s. But what placed him at the center of international scrutiny was his alleged role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Authorities say he was closely linked to David Coleman Headley—the man who conducted scouting missions for the attacks and is currently imprisoned in the U.S. Headley named Rana as the one who helped orchestrate logistics and funding for the operation. Indian investigators also allege Rana’s ties to Pakistan’s ISI, Army circles, and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the 26/11 carnage.
In court, the NIA’s side was presented by a senior legal figure, while Rana, fresh off a transcontinental extradition, was represented through a legal aid counsel.
Now in custody, Rana faces an 18-day stretch under India’s counter-terror lens—a chapter that could revive haunting memories from Mumbai’s darkest hours.
