New Delhi: Security outside the NIA headquarters in Delhi has been beefed up and also outside the Patiala House Courts where 2008 Mumbai terror attacks mastermind Tahawwur Rana is likely to be produced after he lands in Delhi following his extradition from the US.
Some gates of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium Metro Station that open to the NIA headquarters have been shut to the public as part of the heightened security arrangements.
Security is also tight around the Hindon Air Base in Ghaziabad where the special plane bringing Rana from the US, accompanied by Indian intelligence and other officials, landed on Thursday.
Personnel from the paramilitary forces and the Delhi Police have been deployed outside the Patiala court and visitors are being thoroughly frisked, reports said.
An NIA judge is expected to hear the matter.
Rana is expected to be lodged in a high-security ward at Tihar Jail following his court appearance.
On Wednesday night, the government appointed advocate Narender Mann as special public prosecutor for conducting trial and other matters related to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) case RC-04/2009/NIA/DLI (Mumbai attacks) for three years.
Rana, a Pakistan-born Canadian and a close associate of Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, is one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
A multi-agency team from India had gone to the US to bring him back to India.
The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected his plea against his extradition to India to face trial.
Earlier this year too, the US Supreme Court had rejected his plea against his extradition.
He was incarcerated in the US Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, for 14 years. His extradition to India was approved in 2023 by the US Supreme Court.
The extradition of Rana had also been announced by US President Donald Trump who had dubbed him “a very evil man”, in a joint press conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington, in February this year.
Rana, who had personally conducted reconnaissance and scouted Mumbai for picking the locations for the terror strikes, had also directly facilitated fellow jihadi David Coleman Headley—also known as Dawood Gilani—to travel to India using a Pakistani-American passport. The purpose was to identify potential targets for the Mumbai terror attacks being plotted by LeT in coordination with several officers of the Pakistan Army and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
On November 26, 2008, a group of 10 Pakistan-sponsored Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists carried out a coordinated attack on Mumbai CST railway station, two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre. They had entered Mumbai using the sea route from the Arabian Sea.
As many as 166 people were killed, including some Americans, in the terror attack.
