Tahawwur Rana Said ’26/11 Attackers Deserved Pakistan’s Gallantry Award’: US Cites Intercept

Soon after Mumbai was rocked with terror attacks in November 2008, Tahawwur Rana allegedly told his childhood friend David Coleman Headley (Headley) that the terrorists should be given ‘Nishan-e-Haider‘ – Pakistan’s highest award for gallantry in battle, an official release with the United States Department of Justice stated.

As per the document, Tahawwur Rana, who was extradited to India by the United States, also told Headley that “Indians deserved it”. David Coleman Headley is the one who recced targets in Mumbai on the orders of Pakistan-based terror outfits. “After the attacks were complete, Rana allegedly told Headley that the Indians “deserved it”,” the document stated.

“In an intercepted conversation with Headley, Rana allegedly commended the nine LeT terrorists who had been killed committing the attacks, saying that “[t]hey should be given Nishan-e-Haider”—Pakistan’s “highest award for gallantry in battle,” which is reserved for fallen soldiers,” it added.

“Rana, 64, is charged in India with numerous offenses, including conspiracy, murder, commission of a terrorist act, and forgery, related to his alleged involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks committed by Laskhar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), a designated foreign terrorist organization,” it stated.

“Between November 26 and 29, 2008, ten LeT terrorists carried out a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks in Mumbai. They infiltrated the city by sea and then broke into teams, dispersing to multiple locations. Attackers at a train station fired guns and threw grenades into crowds. Attackers at two restaurants shot indiscriminately at patrons. Attackers at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel gunned people down and detonated explosives. Attackers also shot and killed people at a Jewish community center,” it read.

“When the terror finally subsided, 166 victims, including six Americans, were dead, along with all but one of the LeT terrorists. Hundreds more were injured, and Mumbai sustained more than $1.5 billion in property damage. The attacks were among the most horrific and catastrophic in India’s history,” as per the US document.

“India alleges that Rana facilitated a fraudulent cover so that his childhood friend David Coleman Headley (Headley), a U.S. citizen born Daood Gilani, could freely travel to Mumbai for the purpose of conducting surveillance of potential attack sites for LeT,” the document further stated.

“Among other things, Rana allegedly agreed to open a Mumbai branch of his immigration business and appoint Headley as the manager of the office, despite Headley’s having no immigration experience. On two separate occasions, Rana allegedly helped Headley prepare and submit visa applications to Indian authorities that contained information Rana knew to be false,” it stated.

“Rana also allegedly supplied, through his unsuspecting business partner, documentation in support of Headley’s attempt to secure formal approval from Indian authorities to open a branch office of Rana’s business,” the document read.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday evening formally arrested Rana, who was brought to India after being “successfully extradited” from the US.

TAHAWWUR RANA’s ROLE IN MUMBAI TERROR ATTACKS
Rana had served in the Pakistan Army medical corps before emigrating to Canada in the late 1990s and started an immigration consultancy firm. He later moved to the US and set up an office in Chicago. Through his firm, Rana gave cover to Headley to carry out a reconnaissance mission in Mumbai prior to the November 2008 attacks and helped him get a ten-year visa extension, news agency PTI quoted a police official as saying.

During his stay in India, Headley used the front of running an immigration business and was in regular contact with Rana. There were more than 230 phone calls between the two during this period, the official said. Rana was also in touch with ‘Major Iqbal’, another co-conspirator of the attacks during this period, as per the NIA charge sheet. Rana himself visited India in November 2008, days before the terror attack.

As per the charge sheet filed by Mumbai police against Rana in 2023 in the 26/11 attack case, he lived in a hotel in Powai and had a discussion about crowded places in South Mumbai with a person who has been listed as a witness in the case.

Subsequently, some of these places were targeted by Pakistani terrorists during the deadly attacks that claimed 166 lives. he terrorists targeted multiple iconic locations in Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, Leopold Cafe, Chabad House and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station, each of which Headley had scouted in advance.