Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a key accused in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, will remain in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) custody for 18 days, during which he will be questioned to unravel the conspiracy behind the 26/11 attacks, the probe agency said.
NIA told the court that Rana’s interrogation was necessary to unearth the larger conspiracy behind the 2008 attacks, PTI reported.
He will be kept in a highly secured cell inside the anti-terror agency’s head office at the CGO complex, officials said.
Rana was extradited from the United States to India on Thursday for prosecution after 16 years.
Special National Investigation Agency (NIA) judge Chander Jit Singh sent Rana to custody on an application of NIA, which sought a 20-day custody.
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Rana was brought to the Patiala House Court in a cavalcade, including a jail van, an armoured SWAT vehicle and an ambulance, on late Thursday night.
Before the proceedings, the judge asked Rana if he had a lawyer.
After Rana said that he did not have a lawyer, the judge informed him that a counsel was being provided to him from Delhi Legal Services Authority.
Who is Tahawwur Rana?
Tahawwur Rana is a 64-year-old Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman, who is a close associate of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks’ main conspirator David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilanis.
Gilanis is accused of conspiring with Headley and operatives of designated terrorist organisations Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami (HUJI), along with other Pakistan-based co-conspirators, to carry out the three-day terror siege of India’s financial capital.
On November 26, 2008, a group of 10 Pakistani terrorists went on a rampage, carrying out a coordinated attack on a railway station, two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre, after they sneaked into India’s financial capital using the sea route in the Arabian Sea.
Rana will be tried for waging war against the state, murder and terrorism, among other charges that attract the death penalty, after Indian and US authorities didn’t take capital punishment off the table during the extradition deal.
The sections under which the National Investigation Agency (NIA) named Rana as an accused and sought his extradition include section 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 121 (waging war), 121A (conspiracy to wage war), 302 (murder), 468 and 471 (forgery) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 18 and 20 of stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which deal with terrorist activity.