NEW DELHI: A multi-agency team comprising investigators from two intelligence agencies, besides the National Investigation Agency and a team of psychologists specialising in criminology, will begin the interrogation of Tahawwur Rana, one of the masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai attack, after he lands in Delhi early on Thursday.
Home minister Amit Shah, national security adviser Ajit Doval and foreign minister S Jaishankar held a meeting on Wednesday evening to review the security arrangements and course of action ahead of Rana’s arrival.
TOI was the first to report on Rana’s dispatch. His custody was handed over to Indian sleuths in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening.
The website of the US Federal Bureau of Prisons has updated the status against Rana’s name saying he wasn’t in their custody as of Tuesday. Rana’s register number (22829-424) read: “Not in BOP custody as of 04/08/2025.”
A team of officials drawn from Indian agencies in the US was tasked with facilitating his return. Sources said the chief investigating officer, DIG (NIA) Jaya Roy, signed off on the ‘surrender warrant’ Tuesday, following which swift arrangements were made to fly him to Delhi. The team left Wednesday around 6.30am, aiming to complete the journey with a brief pit stop. Incidentally, NIA is headed by Sadanand Date, a Maharashtra cadre IPS officer who, along with other colleagues, had rushed to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus area on the fateful evening of Nov 26, 2008 after the terrorists struck at targets selected by, among others, Rana’s partner in the massacre David Coleman Headley.
Rana’s interrogators, a source said, will aim to get him to divulge details about Pakistani state actors involved in the 26/11 plot, details of ISI network, as well as LeT’s local collaborators and sources of funding. There also seems to be recognition that breaking down a hardened terrorist, especially one motivated by jihad, may not be easy. “He has already been probed extensively, and cracking him will not be an easy task. He would know where to mislead us and create smokescreens. This will be time-consuming,” said a source in the know.
Rana (64) is learned to have already got his contacts to engage his defence counsel. Due to security reasons, Rana may not be taken to court and his remand proceedings may be held in camera, sources said.
