Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: With the US government urging the Supreme Court to dismiss a petition filed by Tahawwur Rana, a key mastermind convict in the November 26, 2008, terror attack in Mumbai, the likelihood of his extradition to India has brightened, the media reported on Friday.
Rana, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, is currently lodged in a high-security jail in Los Angeles. With India seeking his extradition, he approached the court to avoid it.
Having lost the legal battle against his extraditions in lower courts and several federal courts, including the US Court of Appeals for the North Circuit in San Francisco, Rana on November 13 filed a “petition for a writ of certiorari” before the US Supreme Court. The US government has urged the apex court to reject it.
This is Rana’s last legal chance to avoid extradition to India.
“The petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied,” US Solicitor-General Elizabeth B Prelogar said in a filing before the Supreme Court on December 16. Rana is not entitled to relief from extradition to India in this case, she argued in a 20-page submission.
In his “petition for a writ of certiorari to review the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit,” Rana argued that he was tried and acquitted in the federal court in the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago) on charges relating to the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai. “India now seeks to extradite him for trial on charges based on the identical conduct at issue in the Chicago case,” the plea said.
On November 26, 2008, a gang of 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists from Pakistan arrived by the Arabian Sea route, reached Mumbai, and indiscriminately opened fire, killing 166 people, including 18 security personnel and several foreigners, and injuring many others during the 60-hour siege in India’s financial capital.
Mumbai’s landmarks, including the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the Oberoi Trident, the Taj Mahal Hotel, Leopold Cafe, Cama Hospital, and the Nariman House Jewish community center, now renamed Nariman Light House, were some of the places targeted by highly-armed and trained Muslim terrorists.
At least, nine terrorists were later killed by the security forces, including the NSG, the country’s elite commando force.
Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist captured alive, was hanged four years later on November 21, 2012.