The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday began questioning 26/11 Mumbai attacks’ mastermind Tahawwur Hussain Rana here to unravel the larger conspiracy behind the deadly strikes in 2008 in the country’s financial capital, officials said.
Rana was brought to the NIA headquarters here early Friday morning after a city court granted 18-day custody to the central probe agency, following his much-awaited extradition from the US.
Rana is being kept in a highly-secured cell, inside the anti-terror agency’s head office at the CGO complex, guarded round the clock by security personnel. A 24x7 surveillance is in place and Rana has been provided basic necessities like consumables and regular meals among others. The investigation is being led by NIA’s Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Jaya Roy, who is also the Chief Investigating Officer, said officials.
"During his NIA custody for 18 days, the agency will question him in detail to unravel the complete conspiracy behind the deadly 2008 attacks, in which a total of 166 persons were killed and over 238 injured,” said a statement issued by the probe agency soon after the court’s remand order. It is learnt that the interrogation is focussed on getting more details on his possible connection with Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which had orchestrated the attacks.
The 64-year-old Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman — a close associate of key Mumbai terror attacks conspirator and US citizen David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilani -will also be questioned on his suspected links with Pakistan spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and his exact role behind the Mumbai attacks, the sources said. The investigators also hope to find some important leads on his travels to parts of north and south India, days before the carnage in the country’s financial capital on November 26, 2008, they said.
Rana visited Hapur and Agra in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Kochi, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai with his wife Samraz Rana Akhtar between November 13 and November 21, 2008. Officials said there could be a larger conspiracy aimed at targeting other places across the country behind his visits to these places, and the exact details would be ascertained only after his interrogation.
Incidentally, Rana’s custodial interrogation comes at a time when senior Maharashtra-cadre Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sadanand Vasant Date is at the helm of the NIA. Date, who was then posted as an Additional Commissioner of Police in Mumbai when 10 terrorists struck Mumbai, had received serious injuries in the terror attack. Date bravely fought Ajmal Kasab and other LeT terrorist Abu Ismail despite his serious injuries in the attack.
He was appointed as Director General of NIA - specialised agency that came into existence in the aftermath of the three-day terror siege in Mumbai - in March last year. The anti-terror agency had presented Rana in an NIA Special Court at Patiala House after formally placing him under arrest following his landing at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport here Thursday evening, upon his extradition from the US.
Rana is charged with numerous offenses, including conspiracy, murder, commission of a terrorist act, and forgery in the country. During the NIA investigation, the roles of senior functionaries of terror groups LeT and Harkat-ul Jihadi Islami (HuJI) — Hafiz Muhammad Saeed alias Tayyaji, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Sajjid Majid alias Wasi, Illyas Kashmiri, and Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Major Abdurrehman alias Pasha -- had emerged, the officials said. They worked in active connivance with officials from the ISI, namely Major Iqbal alias Major Ali and Major Sameer Ali alias Major Samir, according to the NIA probe.
