A special flight carrying Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani-origin Canadian citizen accused of involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, landed in New Delhi on Thursday, The Hindu reported. Rana has been brought to India after having been extradited from the United States.

The National Investigation Agency said it successfully secured his extradition “after years of sustained and concerted efforts to bring the key conspirator behind the 2008 mayhem to justice”.

Rana is wanted in India for his alleged role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, which left 166 people dead, including 26 foreign nationals. Ten attackers, linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, had traveled by sea from Pakistan to Mumbai, targeting several locations across the city.

The Union home ministry, in a late night gazette notification on Wednesday, appointed advocate Narender Mann as the special prosecutor representing the National Investigation Agency in the case for three years.

In May 2023, a US district court ordered Rana’s extradition to India in connection with the matter.

Rana challenged his extradition and lost legal battles before the US Supreme Court and several federal courts, including the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.

On January 21, the US Supreme Court denied his petition challenging his extradition.

Union Home Minister called Rana’s extradition a “big success of Prime Minister Modi’s diplomacy”.

“The Modi government’s effort is to bring to justice those who attack India’s honour, land and people,” Shah said on Wednesday at the News18 Rising Bharat Summit. “He will be brought here to face trial and punishment. It is a big success of the Modi government.”

Congress leader P Chidambaram, on the other hand, said that Rana’s extradition was the result of ground work laid down by the United Progressive Alliance government, ANI reported.

“In February 2025, Prime Minister Modi and President Trump stood at a press conference and tried to take credit for what was essentially the result of years of UPA-era groundwork,” Chidambaram said.

He claimed that the Modi government did not initiative the extradition process, but merely benefited from the “mature, consistent and strategic diplomacy begun under the UPA”.

Rana was allegedly associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, also known as “Daood Gilani”, who was one of the chief conspirators of the attacks in Mumbai. Rana allegedly helped Headley assist the Lashkar-e-Taiba in carrying out the attacks.