17 years of 26/11: 9 terrorists killed, one hanged; 2 acquitted, justice waits for 6

Seventeen years after 10 Pakistani jihadists began a dayslong campaign of terror in Mumbai, India continues the pursuit of justice — one plotter at a time.

Earlier this month, the Bombay High Court ruled that the trial of Abu Jundal, a man accused of training these terrorists and teaching them Hindi, could resume. The trial was stalled since 2018 because of procedural issues.

Previously, in April, Tahawwur Rana was extradited to India after years of efforts. His trial for facilitating the 26/11 attack is ongoing.

In the past 17 years, an entire generation has come of age, but India has not on. Instead, India has continued to seek and prosecute plotters behind the attack, but some remain beyond India’s reach — Lashkar-e-Taiba (Let) co-founders Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Hafiz Saeed, LeT senior operative Sajid Mir, Inter-Service Intelligence’s (ISI) shadowy ‘Major Iqbal’ are at large in Pakistan and David Coleman Headley is jailed in the United States.

The pursuit of justice has not been without flaws. Two men tried for being part of the 26/11 plot, Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, were acquitted. They were, however, convicted in the case of a terrorist attack on a CRPF camp in 2007. But they were acquitted in that case by a higher court in 2025.

Noting the defective investigation in the CRPF attack case, the Allahabad High Court said the “case would have met a different result had the investigation and prosecution been conducted by more trained police”.

The fact that Ansari and Ahmed were accused and subsequently acquittals acquittal —in two cases by different courts— has made their cases one of the most controversial in India’s counter-terrorism history.

From Kasab to Abu Jundal and Tahawwur Rana — India’s pursuit of justice

Pakistan’s conspiracy began to unravel when Ajmal Amir Kasab was captured alive.

As per former Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria, who ran the control room when the attack began, terrorists would have presented themselves as Hindus — hiding their links to Pakistan.

In his book ‘Let Me Say It Now’, Maria wrote, “If all had gone well, he [Kasab)] would have been dead with a red string tied around his wrist like a Hindu. We would have found an identity card on his person with a fictitious name: Samir Dinesh Chaudhari, student of Arunodaya degree and PG college…Bengaluru…There would have been screaming headlines on newspapers claiming how Hindu terrorists had attacked Mumbai. Over the top TV journalists would have made a beeline for Bengaluru to interview his family and neighbours. But alas, it had not worked that way and here he was, Ajmal Amir Kasab of Faridkot in Pakistan.”

Kasab was tried, convicted, and hanged till death.

Then India landed in its net Abu Jundal, whose real name is Zabiuddin Ansari. He is believed to have been a trainer of Kasab and his fellow terrorists.

Abu Jundal was extradited to India in 2012 from Saudi Arabia where he had moved after spending years in Pakistan. But his case stalled in 2018 over allegations of improper procedures involved in the extraditions. But Bombay High Court ruled earlier this month that his trial could resume.

Abu Jundal is understood to be present in the LeT’s control room in Pakistan’s Karachi that oversaw the 26/11 attacks. This makes him the only person in Indian custody who was at the nerve centre of the entire operation.

Beyond 26/11 attacks, Ansari has been serving a life term in the Aurangabad arms haul case of 2006.

Then, in April, India landed in its net Tahawwur Rana, the Pakistani-Canadian jihadist who facilitated the 26/11 attacks. The extradition came after years of efforts.

Rana deserted the Pakistan Army, where he was a captain, and moved to Canada and became a citizen. He then moved to the United States and settled in Chicago where he opened several businesses. One of his businesses, an immigration consultancy, was part of the LeT’s plot to strike Mumbai.

Rana is tied to another accused in the case, David Coleman Headley, who used his immigration consultancy as a cover to travel to India and plan Mumbai attacks.

Headley has testified that he worked scouted locations in Mumbai and Rana helped him obtain a visa and allowed him to open a Mumbai-based office using the name of Rana’s company —First World Immigration Services Inc— while knowing his true purpose of planning a terrorist attack. As per the testimony, Rana facilitated the 26/11 attacks by arranging the scouting and helping Headley, a member of the plot.

Rana was also in touch with another accused in the case, Major Iqbal, who remains at large in Pakistan.

Those who remain at large

LeT co-founders Lakhvi and Saeed along with ISI’s Major Iqbal and senior LeT operative Sajid Mir at large in Pakistan.

Major Iqbal’s real name is believed to be Chaudhry Khan, according to Headley.

At some points, Mir has been described as one of the main planners of the attack. Both he and Mir are believed to be regular officers of Pakistan Army who either joined ISI later or joined LeT. Considering ISI and jihadist groups work closely, the lines between the two sides are in any case blurry.

Lakhvi and Saeed have been leading a jihadist campaign against decades. After their latest attack on India in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam in April, India struck LeT’s headquarters among several jihadist sites in Pakistan under Operation Sindoor.

While Lakhvi and Saeed survived, Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Masood Azhar lost several family members in another strike on Jaish’s headquarters as part of the operation. Azhar’s Jaish was behind the Pulwama bombing that killed 49 CRPF personnel.

The curious case of Headley — and a missed opportunity

Headley has admitted he was part of the 26/11 plot. He has admitted received training and operational directions from Iqbal and Mir and ISI was centrally involved in planning, arranging, and executing the attack.

Headley also admitted that he visited Mumbai for reconnaissance and scouted the Taj and Oberoi hotels, Leopold Cafe, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, and Nariman House at the instructions of his Pakistani handlers. Kasab and his fellow terrorists attacked all of these locations.

However, as part of his guilty peal agreement, Headley cannot be extradited to India.

But Headley’s case has revealed a damning missed opportunity. It turned out that US agencies had input that he was plotting a terrorist attack in India but the information was not shared with India. And the attack went through.

A ProPublica investigation reported that Headley’s wife had warned the US agencies thrice in 2007 and 2008 that he was plotting a terrorist attack on Mumbai. But the warnings were not heeded timely. To be sure, alerts were sent to India. But they are believed to not have been timely. In any case, Indian agencies at the time failed to act even on the alerts they received and the terrorists carried out the attack.

In their book ‘The Siege: The Attack On The Taj’, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark wrote that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had shared 26 intelligence alerts with India and some of these inputs were very specific, such as the CIA telling India that about the use of “fidayeen, meaning guerrillas armed with grenades and AK-47s who fought to the death, inflicting heavy casualties before being overcome”.

“Eleven warnings suggested the plan would involve multiple simultaneous attacks. Six warnings pointed to a sea-borne infiltration, which would be a first in India,” wrote Levy and Scott-Clark in the book.

Referring to such inputs, ProPublica’s investigative journalist Sebastian Rotella noted that “US agencies learned enough about him [Headley] to glean fragments of intelligence” that went into these warnings.

“US and foreign officials say his role as an informant or ex-informant helped him elude detection as he was training in Pakistani terror camps and traveling back and forth to Mumbai to scout targets. And three counterterror sources say US agencies learned enough about him to glean fragments of intelligence that contributed to the warnings to India about a developing plot against Mumbai,” noted Rotella.