26/11 accused Tahawwur Rana loses final appeal in US court, faces extradition to India

The United States Supreme Court has turned down Tahawwur Rana’s final legal attempt to block his extradition to India, moving him a step closer to being handed over to Indian authorities. Rana is accused of playing a role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and is expected to face trial under Indian law.Rana, a 64-year-old Canadian national of Pakistani origin, is currently being held at a federal detention centre in Los Angeles. He was arrested by the FBI in Chicago in 2009 for his involvement in terrorism-related activities, including a failed plot to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. He was later convicted in the United States of conspiracy to support that plot and of providing material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based terror group responsible for the Mumbai attacks.
In the years following his conviction, India formally requested Rana’s extradition. The US Department of State approved the request on February 11, 2025, a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington. President Donald Trump later confirmed the decision during a press conference with Modi at the White House.
“Tahawwur Rana will be going back to India, where he will face justice,” Trump said, calling him “one of the plotters and one of the very evil people of the world.”
Rana has been fighting extradition through the US legal system. On February 27, 2025, he filed an ‘Emergency Application for Stay Pending Litigation of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus’ with Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan, who denied it in early March. He subsequently renewed the application and directed it to Chief Justice John Roberts, who referred it to the full Court. On April 4, the application was taken up for Conference, and the Court issued a notice denying it.Rana’s legal team argued that extraditing him would violate US law and the UN Convention Against Torture, citing what they described as a serious risk of torture due to his background as a Muslim of Pakistani origin accused in the Mumbai case. His lawyers also claimed that his fragile health would make extradition equivalent to a “de facto death sentence.”

Despite these claims, the US Supreme Court declined to intervene. The State Department, according to Rana’s counsel, did not provide any assurances regarding how he would be treated once extradited to India or share the full administrative record behind Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s decision authorising the extradition.

Rana had been identified by the Mumbai Police in a 405-page chargesheet as a collaborator of David Coleman Headley, who conducted a recce of the sites attacked in Mumbai. Headley posed as an employee of Rana’s immigration consultancy to carry out his surveillance.

The Mumbai terror attacks, which occurred between November 26 and 29, 2008, involved 10 gunmen from Lashkar-e-Taiba and led to the deaths of 166 people, including six American citizens. More than 300 others were injured.

The coordinated assault targeted several high-profile locations, including the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Oberoi Trident, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, and Nariman House. The attack remains one of the deadliest terror incidents in India’s history.