‘Tahawwur Rana helped co-conspirator David Headley obtain Indian visa’

Mumbai: Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a key accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case, had helped co-conspirator David Coleman Headley to obtain an Indian visa, a Mumbai police official familiar with the probe has said.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday evening formally arrested Rana, who was brought to India after being “successfully extradited” from the US. A special court in Delhi subsequently remanded him in the custody of the agency for 18 days.

Rana had served in the Pakistan Army medical corps before emigrating to Canada in the late 1990s and started an immigration consultancy firm. He later moved to the US and set up an office in Chicago.

Through his firm, Rana gave cover to Headley to carry out a reconnaissance mission in Mumbai prior to the November 2008 attacks and helped him get a ten-year visa extension, the police official said on Thursday.

During his stay in India, Headley used the front of running an immigration business and was in regular contact with Rana.

There were more than 230 phone calls between the two during this period, the official said.

Rana was also in touch with ‘Major Iqbal’, another co-conspirator of the attacks during this period, as per the NIA charge sheet.

Rana himself visited India in November 2008, days before the terror attack.

As per the charge sheet filed by Mumbai police against Rana in 2023 in the 26/11 attack case, he lived in a hotel in Powai and had a discussion about crowded places in South Mumbai with a person who has been listed as a witness in the case.

Subsequently, some of these places were targeted by the Pakistani terrorists during the deadly attacks that claimed 166 lives.

The terrorists targeted multiple iconic locations in Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, Leopold Cafe, Chabad House and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station, each of which Headley had scouted in advance.