In a decisive ruling, the United States Supreme Court has rejected an "emergency application" by Tahawwur Rana - a key accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, which opposed his extradition to India claiming he will be tortured there as he is a Mulim of Pakistani origin.
Rana, who holds Canadian citizenship and has Pakistani origins, faces charges in India for his involvement in the 26/11 series of Mumbai terror attacks that resulted in over 174 fatalities. Rana is alleged to have assisted his associate David Coleman Headley, also known as Daood Gilani, who possessed US citizenship through his American mother and Pakistani father. US authorities apprehended Headley in October 2009. Rana's involvement reportedly extended beyond being cognisant of Headley's connections to LeT, the Pakistan-based outlawed terrorist group. He actively supported Headley by providing him with false credentials, which enabled Headley to travel to India and scout potential targets for LeT's 2008 operation.
India has been seeking his extradition for a long while now. And, it was greenlit by US President Donald Trump susequent to his meeting with India Prime Minister Modi in the US. Trump agreed to extradite Rana and said, “We are giving a very violent man back to India immediately. There are more to follow because we have quite a few requests."
Rana had approached the US Supreme Court stating in his petition that "if a stay is not entered, there will be no review at all, and the US courts will lose jurisdiction, and the petitioner will soon be dead." He argued that his extradition to India violates United States law and the United Nations Convention Against Torture "because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture. "The likelihood of torture in this case is even higher as the petitioner faces acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the Mumbai attacks," the application said.
The application also pointed out that his "severe medical conditions" render extradition to Indian detention facilities, a "de facto" death sentence in this case. It cited medical records from July 2024 showing that he has multiple "acute and life-threatening diagnoses", including multiple documented heart attacks, Parkinson's disease with cognitive decline, a mass suggestive of bladder cancer, stage 3 chronic kidney disease, and a history of chronic asthma, and multiple COVID-19 infections.