Can Extradition of Tahawwur Rana Bring Closure to 26/11 Terror Attack?

The extradition of Tahawwur Rana to India to face trial for his role in the 26/11 terror attack is big news in the media. One can sincerely hope that with the arrest of only the second suspect to face trial for the 26/11 attacks - the first one was Ajmal Kasab - we can unearth other critical links in the conspiracy, role played by the terrorist groups and the support the whole operation received from the Pakistani establishment or its deep state.

Of course, it will be rather premature to assume that this arrest can bring a closure to the dastardly 26 /11 terror attacks. We are yet far away from the possibility of the mastermind of the attack - Hafeez Saeed and his accomplices - facing trial in Pakistan or being extradited to India.

There is no clue yet whether David Headley, a close friend of Tahawwur Rana, who is called the main conspirator of the operation would ever face trial in India. In fact, it is still a mystery how and why the US entered into a plea deal with him - promising him that he will not be extradited to India.

Considering that many of the relevant facts related to it are slowly being forgotten, it needs reminding that the 26/11 attack was the handiwork of the dreaded outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Ten armed terrorists trained by this Pakistan-based terror outfit and officials in the Pakistan security establishment launched coordinated terror attacks at 12 locations in Mumbai on November 26, 2008. Pakistani journalists and human rights activists were the first to formally acknowledge that the lone terrorist Kasab, who was caught alive, belonged to a village in Pakistan, and sections of Pakistani civil society risked wrath of their rulers to identify him. Ajmal Kasab was later hanged to death at a Pune prison in 2012.

What appears a bit comical is that this extradition is being tom-tommed as a big victory of the ruling dispensation.

Cheerleaders of the government seem to be on overdrive with this development. They had to lie low for quite some time as the Modi government had come under severe flak of the opposition for its pusillanimous behaviour after assent of Trump as a President of USA. Right from its silence or approval of the humiliating manner in which 'illegal migrants' were deported to India to its muted response to the new tariff war unleashed by Trump, and even its readiness to reduce tariff on its own - everything had come under scanner in the world press as well.

No doubt, without the legal process initiated during the earlier Congress led UPA government and the consequent investigations done at higher level this extradition would have been impossible. What the then home minister in the UPA government - P Chidambaram – said while commenting on the extradition is worth consideration. It is a testament to "[w]hat the Indian state can achieve when diplomacy, law enforcement, and international cooperation are pursued sincerely and without any kind of chest-thumping,” and cannot be the case of any grandstanding.

There are two major gaps in the way Modi government is reacting to this extradition.

One, there is a selective amnesia about the way the case was dealt with by the earlier UPA government which had - as already mentioned - initiated the legal process to apprehend the culprits and the masterminds.

What Mr.G.K. Pillai, the then home secretary who handled the Mumbai terror attack case in US also on behalf of the then UPA government shared in an interview to The Hindu in this case perhaps needs elaboration. He revealed that, despite knowing about the terror plan, the U.S. let Rana’s school friend and main conspirator, David Coleman Headley, to continue with his ‘anti-India activity’; and after the latter’s arrest in 2009, the Americans stalled his extradition to India by offering him a plea-bargain. According to the investigation led by him then, 'Tahawwur Rana was a small player' in the whole operation.

Two, in its rather short sighted efforts to claim credit for this BIG VICTORY and project the earlier Congress led UPA government in bad light, BJP government is not ready to reveal or talk about the deeper nuances of the case or the way the US government acted in 'bad faith' in bringing the guilty to the book. It would be rather difficult to believe today that despite its proclamations about fighting terror and joining hands with victims of such attacks the US establishment have had no qualms in refusing access to Headley with the specious plea that this Lashkar-e-Toiba operative (as claimed by the US itself) "..does not want to be questioned by Indian investigators.."

A report released by PTI and carried by www.rediff.com (December 15, 2009 20:18 IST) tells us "During their discussions, FBI officials told Indian investigators that Headley does not want to be questioned by Indian investigators, raising suspicion that the US agency does want him to be questioned by India. "

Anyone who is concerned about terrorist acts in the country and the rest of the world and the loss of innocent human lives accompanying them would be definitely surprised over US government's stand. If Headley really happened to be a Lashkar-e-Toiba operative then didn't it make more sense that his interrogation could have revealed a few gaps in the whole story of the 26/11 attack as well as helped unearth the all India network of this outfit. Looking at the fact that Headley had himself surveyed German bakery in Pune, possibly the Pune explosion could have been avoided saving many innocent lives. Of course, US had made its intentions clear before a team of investigators from India, who had gone there with a hope that it would get easy access to Headley and found themselves at their wit's end when US flatly refused to entertain their request raising some technical difficulties.

After all why did the US government, which has 'perfected' the practice of extraordinary rendition of terrorism suspects from any part of the world and which has built secret prisons across the globe much on the lines of Guantanamo and Bagram, denying every human right to the detainees, felt constrained because of 'technical difficulties' to grant access to a key player in the biggest terrorist attack in India in recent times.

There is nothing surprising in the US governments actions or its providing fictitious 'technical difficulties' in handing over Headley.

A cursory glance at the history of US makes it clear that it has itself engaged in similar duplicitous behaviour any number of times. While singing paeans to the principles of universal brotherhood/sisterhood it has decided about things from case to case and the key factor has been what serves US interests better. It has shamelessly condoned clandestine operations by Mossad, the Israeli secret service where it has presented itself not as gatherers of information but international assassins. The much-debated case of the Cuban-American terrorist Possada Carilles who was instrumental in blowing up a civilian airliner killing 73 people is a case in point.

Perhaps very few people in this part of the globe have even heard about Possada Carilles, a Cuban immigrant to America. In fact he was on the payroll of the CIA for around 40 years, engaged in doing all those ‘dirty jobs’, which the US intelligence wanted him to do. In 1960 he joined the CIA Operations 40, made up of sharpshooters whose job was to murder the leaders of Cuba’s government. In early 70s he was sent to Caracas, Venezuela by the CIA with substantial bomb making materials. In 1975 he opened a separate outfit (in reality a CIA cover) and masterminded the bombing of a civilian airliner by placing a bomb in the restroom of a civilian Cubana airliner which blew up in midair after leaving Barbados for Havana, killing all 73 civilians aboard. The recently declassified parts of CIA, FBI and State Department reports confirm Posada’s key role in it. He continued with his terrorist operations thereafter and got finally caught in 2000 in Panama City with 37 lb. of C-4 explosives in his car, intending to kill Castro and hundreds of students at a speech to be given at a local university.

Even a cursory glance at Posada’s bloody career makes it clear that the top bosses of the US establishment made every effort to save him. It is revealing to note that despite the fact that he was convicted and has confessed to his crime, the U.S. government protected him.

Coming back to David Headley, it needs explaining why US government exhibited its 'strange behaviour' in handing over David Headley to the Indian investigating agencies.

First let us look at Headley, the person.

We are told that his father was a Pakistani Muslim and mother an American and his original name was Daood Gilani. He later shifted to US where he was caught in drug related charges in 1998, was convicted and sent to jail. He was released after 9/11 and sent to work as an undercover agent for Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He was given a new passport in the American name of David Headley (his American mother’s maiden name was Headley) rather than his original name of Daood Gilani. He flew around the world, entering and leaving the US at will, avoiding the sort of attention that a convicted drug criminal was certain to attract at US airports.

In fact when Headley was first arrested, the Americans declared that they had foiled a plot to kill a Danish cartoonist. With more details trickling out, the terror suspect, it was then learnt that he was a US citizen of Pakistani origin, had some links with LeT and had visited India and might have been part of an advance team for 26/11. This 'double identity' definitely helped him not to come under the scanner of India's intelligence

In fact, mainstream media channels in India had raised this issue when news came in that Headley was apprehended in the US in October 2009. In his commentary Suman K Chakravarty of CNN-IBN (Was David Headley a double agent? Published on Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 20:56) pointedly posed this question :

New Delhi: Who exactly is David Coleman Headley? Is he just a Lashker-e-Toiba operative? New evidence suggests that he might have been a double agent - one who turned rouge after working for America’s Drug Enforcement Administration’s murky intelligence unit. After 9/11 America was covered with a high security net, but Headley - originally known as Daood Gilani and a convicted felon of Pakistani descent - travelled to and fro between US and Pakistan with apparent ease. This connection has now raised several uneasy questions.

Writing on the issue in 'The Hindu' (Dec 16, 2009) Vinay Kumar raised very similar question 'David Headley, a double agent?'

NEW DELHI: Pakistani-origin American, David Coleman Headley, who is at the centre of a global terrorism investigation for his alleged role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, may well have been a “double agent” working for U.S. agencies as well as Pakistani terror organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Headley travelled to India in March 2009, four months after 26/11, but the U.S. agencies, including the FBI, did not alert or inform their Indian counterparts because it could have led to his arrest here, top officials of the Union Home Ministry said on Tuesday. Investigations also pointed to the fact that Headley could have travelled to India with his wife last March.

The officials said there was a “strong suspicion,” based on nation-wide investigations, that the CIA knew about Headley’s links with the LeT one year prior to 26/11 but did not inform Indian agencies as it could have blown the lid off Headley’s activities. He was arrested on October 3 by the FBI in Chicago for his alleged role in the Mumbai attacks.

Highly placed government sources said if he was given lesser punishment in a U.S. court, it would only strengthen India’s suspicion that he was a “double agent.” Such a punishment could also be given through the process of “plea bargain” before the court between him and the U.S. agencies.

Perhaps one of the most devastating writeup on the l'affaire David Headley appeared in Hindustan Times. (20 Dec 2009). Vir Sanghvi in his thought provoking article 'Did America Keep Mum on 26/11 attacks?' posed important points.

..Why would the US treat a 26/11 suspect with such consideration?

The only explanation that fits is this: he was an American agent all along. The US arrested him only when it seemed that Indian investigators were on his trail. He will be sentenced to jail, will vanish into the US jail system for a while and will then be sprung again — as he was the last time.

Tahawwur Rana's successful extraditon definitely adds more urgency to our demand to seek answers to all these questions. Whether the Modi government would gather courage to answer all these questions with similar urgency is a moot point.

Looking at its track record of keeping mum when faced with adverse situation at the national or international situation, such a forthright approach on behalf of the ruling dispensation looks impossible. In fact this extradition seems to have become a convenient ploy to distract attention from its "abject failures" in providing quality education to students, respectable jobs to youth, guaranteeing Minimum Support Prices to farmers or it utter inability to quench the ethnic fires raging in the northeastern state of Manipur.

A young leader of Congress rightly put it this extradition is "no diplomatic success but a ploy by BJP to divert public attention.

The writer is an independent journalist. The views are personal.