Rana will be taken under tight security to the headquarters of the NIA, where a high-security cell has been readied for his interrogation. He will be put on trial for his alleged involvement in the 26/11 attacks, which claimed 166 lives during a coordinated three-day assault on Mumbai.Rana’s arrival, cloaked in a dense security blanket, comes just hours after Pakistan’s Foreign Office issued a carefully worded video statement distancing itself from him. The statement declared that Rana had not renewed any Pakistani documentation in the last two decades and that his Canadian nationality was “very clear.”Sources in India’s intelligence establishment believe the Pakistani Foreign Office’s abrupt distancing is no coincidence. Rana, they assert, holds vital knowledge of Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus and its hand in orchestrating the Mumbai attacks. His known ties to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Army make him a potential mine of damning testimony that could expose the state’s role in the 26/11 attacks.“Pakistan fears Rana will spill the beans… this sudden disavowal is nothing but strategic panic,” said a senior counter-terror official.Meanwhile, Israel on Thursday hailed the extradition of Tahawwur Rana. “I would like to thank the Government of India for its persistence in bringing the terrorists to justice,” Israel’s Ambassador to India, Reuven Azar said in a statement. Rana’s extradition is the culmination of a lengthy legal and diplomatic struggle that saw Indian authorities pressing the United States under the 1997 India-US Extradition Treaty. After years of litigation, the US Supreme Court dealt the final blow to Rana’s attempts to evade deportation by rejecting his plea for a stay.In a blunt order, the apex court ruled, “The application for stay addressed to the Chief Justice and referred to the Court is denied.” Rana’s lawyers had pleaded that extraditing him would violate the UN Convention Against Torture due to his Pakistani-Muslim background and the politically sensitive nature of the case. The court, however, found the arguments unconvincing.Rana is to be produced before a special court at Patiala House, where the NIA is expected to seek his custody. The court appearance is scheduled later in the evening, with multiple security layers put in place to avoid any untoward incident.
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