Pakistan distances itself from 26/11 accused Tahawwur Rana, “He is a Canadian national"

Hours before Tahawwur Rana’s arrival in India following his extradition from the United States, Pakistan officially distanced itself from the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused. At a press briefing, Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan stated, “He is a Canadian national and as per our record he has not renewed his Pakistani documents for over two decades.” The clarification came while Indian authorities prepared to receive the 64-year-old at the Palam Air Force base in Delhi.

Tahawwur Rana was born in Pakistan in 1961 and served as a doctor in the Pakistan Army Medical Corps. He later moved to Canada in the 1990s and became a Canadian citizen in the early 2000s. According to the Pakistan Foreign Office, his failure to renew official Pakistani documents — such as a passport or an overseas national identity card — is the basis for denying his current Pakistani citizenship status.

Rana was taken into FBI custody in October 2009 in the United States on charges of supporting the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and planning an attack on a Danish newspaper. He was convicted two years later. Rana’s extradition to India followed multiple legal appeals in US courts, all of which were eventually denied. He is expected to be arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) upon arrival and taken to Tihar Jail.

Indian investigative agencies have identified Rana as a close associate of David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American operative who carried out reconnaissance for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Headley, currently serving a sentence in the US, testified that Rana provided logistical and financial support for the attack. The 26/11 Mumbai attacks resulted in 166 deaths, including six American citizens, and involved ten armed attackers targeting multiple key locations in the city over a span of 60 hours.

Ajmal Kasab, the only attacker captured alive, confessed to being a Pakistani national and identified links to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and LeT. During the attack, he and other terrorists carried forged Indian documents and wore saffron threads to appear Hindu. Kasab used a false identity as “Samir Dinesh Chaudhari” from Bengaluru. The Pakistani government initially denied Kasab’s nationality and later acknowledged it after confirmation of his identity. Following this, then Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani removed his national security adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani for confirming Kasab’s citizenship.