New Delhi: Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a key conspirator in the 26/11 Mumbai strike, has apparently told the Mumbai Crime Branch and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that he was a trusted agent of the Pakistan Army and present in the city when the attack took place.
Rana also told the interrogators that he along with his friend and aide David Coleman Headley had several training sessions with Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), India Today has reported.
According to him, the LeT primarily runs a spy network and carries out operations on the behest of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
“Rana said the idea of opening an immigration centre of his firm in Mumbai was his and financial transactions in it were also done as business expenses. He also admitted he was in Mumbai during the 26/11 attacks and that was part of the terrorists’ plan,” an official has said.
Rana, now 64, is said to have told Indian agencies that he inspected places like Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus for the LeT and believed that the 26/11 attacks were carried out in collaboration with the ISI.
He has claimed that he was sent by the Pakistan Army to Saudi Arabia during the Khaleej War. The Mumbai Police are now preparing to take Rana into their own custody.
A Pakistani-origin Canadian, Rana was Extradited to India earlier this year. His extradition followed the April 4 dismissal of his review petition by the US Supreme Court. After arriving in India in May, he was formally taken into judicial custody by the NIA. He is now being questioned in connection with multiple charges of conspiracy, murder, commission of a terrorist act and forgery.
The 26/11 Mumbai attacks, one of the deadliest in the country’s history, claimed 166 lives over 60 hours, during which iconic landmarks such as the Taj Hotel and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus were targeted.
