US shares fresh information on activities of 26/11 terror attack co-conspirator Tahawwur Rana

THe US has shared refreshed info with republic of india on the role and activities of 26/11 bombay attacks co-conspirator Tahawwur genus rana as part of mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) request by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), people familiar with the matter said on Monday.Without going into the specifics of the fresh details received from the US, one officer at the agency added that India has “ received some crucial information from the US under the MLAT on Rana’s role, which are being analysed for further action”.Rana, a 64-year-old former captain of the Pakistan Army who served as a medical officer before moving to Canada, played a key role in the Mumbai terror attacks. He was brought to India from Los Angeles on a special aircraft on April 10 last year and formally arrested after a five-year legal battle to extradite him, which was supported by the US government. He has been charged for murder, terrorism, attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy and waging war against the country.NIA filed a supplementary charge sheet in July last year in the 26/11 attacks based on Rana’s interrogation, documentary evidence and statements from several witnesses. Evidence collected by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) including intercepted conversations and emails between Tahawwur Rana, his childhood friend and co-accused David Coleman Headley and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) planners in Pakistan, are part of NIA’s charges in the case. The Pakistani-Canadian doctor is currently lodged in the Tihar jail in Delhi.Other than conspiring with Lashkar-e-Taiba leadership and Headley to carry out 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, that left 166 people dead during a nearly 60-hour assault, NIA has been looking at Rana’s role in LeT’s plans to carry out attacks in other parts of the country around that time.After his repatriation , NIA last year interrogated Rana at length about his coded communications with co-accused Headley, Major Abdul Rehman Hashim Syed alias ‘Pasha’ and Sajid Majid alias Sajid Mir, in which they discussed fresh targets in India after the 2008 attacks.NIA has claimed in its court documents that Rana was part of 26/11 Mumbai attacks conspiracy since 2006 and visited India between November 13 and 21, 2008. Just before the attacks, he was in Dubai and met Pasha and later went to China. From China, he travelled back to the US on the first day of attacks, November 26, 2008.The broader 26/11 conspiracy involved 10 accused, with seven based in Pakistan during the 26/11 attacks. Apart from Rana and Headley, the Pakistan-based conspirators include Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi (LeT operations chief), Sajid Majeed alias Sajid Mir (LeT commander), Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha (retired Pakistani major), Major Iqbal and Major Sameer Ali (ISI officers), Abdul Rehman Makki (LeT’s former deputy head who died in Lahore last December), and Ilyas Kashmiri (al-Qaeda leader killed in a US drone strike in June 2011).While several Pakistani conspirators have been sentenced—Hafiz Saeed to 78 years in 2020, Lakhvi to three consecutive five-year terms in 2021, and Sajid Mir reportedly to eight years—Indian officials maintain they continue operating freely under the aegis of Pakistan’s spy agency Inter Services Intelligence.