Tahawwur Hussain Rana on Thursday (Apr 10) was extradited to India from US for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

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Slamming the US for shielding the 2008 Mumbai Attacks' main perpetrator David Coleman Headley, former Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai in an interview said Rana only had a "small role," and that by protecting the main conspirator America was acting in "bad faith".

US 'looks after only their interests'

Speaking to the Hindu, Pillai said: "Even post the 26/11 attack, Headley came back to Mumbai. We could have arrested him in Mumbai if we had known that he is an accomplice in terms of logistics and support. It was definitely bad faith by the Americans. It really shows that as far as the Americans are concerned, they look after only their interests, and not concerned with anybody else's".

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On the significance of Rana's extradition, he stated, Tahawwur Rana "had a small role to play, more of a passive role in providing the legal cover for Headley to be able to come to India."

"His role was setting up the immigration office in Mumbai and employing Headley and it was during these trips that the latter identified the place of landing of the boat carrying the terrorists. He had done physical reconnaissance of all these places and passed on the information to the ISI."

Who is David Coleman Headley?

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Headley was Rana's childhood friend. A Pakistani-American, he had travelled to Mumbai multiple times before the 2008 attacks to scout targets for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Born Daood Sayed Gilani in Washington, DC, Headley is the son of a Pakistani diplomat and an American mother. After a brief jail term for drug trafficking in 1998, he began working for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as a double agent. During his time as an informant, he also joined LeT and trained in Pakistan.

From 2002 to 2008, he allegedly conducted surveillance for Lashkar in both India and Denmark. He was caught in 2009 before launching another planned attack in Europe, and later pleaded guilty to multiple terror charges in a US court.

He is now serving a 35-year sentence in an American prison. India continues to seek his extradition, but US officials maintain that his cooperation deal prevents it.

(With inputs from agencies)