New Delhi: Indian authorities have sought fresh details from the US based on the interrogation of 2611 Mumbai terror accused Tahawwur Rana, officials said Thursday.
On a request from the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the 2008 terror attack case, India has invoked the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to seek the details, the officials said.
They said necessary communication has been made through designated channels to process the probe agency’s request.
Based on what transpired during Rana’s interrogation, details have been sought from the US authorities through the MLAT route, a senior NIA official said.
Rana, who is currently lodged in Tihar prison here, had been interrogated in detail following his extradition from the US April 10 this year.
Before his extradition, Rana was lodged in the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Los Angeles, the US. He was held in judicial custody in the US after proceedings for his extradition were initiated under the India-US Extradition Treaty.
The extradition finally came through after Rana exhausted all legal avenues to stay the move.
The Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman was grilled by NIA investigators based on various leads gathered by the probe agency during the course of its investigation, including a large number of phone calls between him and his co-conspirator, David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilani, a US citizen currently incarcerated in that country.
Rana is accused of conspiring with Headley and operatives of designated terrorist organisations Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami, along with other Pakistan-based co-conspirators, to carry out the three-day terror attack on India’s financial capital.
November 26, 2008, a group of 10 Pakistani terrorists sneaked into Mumbai through the sea route and went on a rampage, carrying out attacks at a railway station, two luxury hotels, and a Jewish centre.
A total of 166 people, including US, British and Israeli citizens, were killed in the dastardly terror attack.
