Tahawwur Rana Not The First, Modi Sarkar Has Dragged Over A Dozen From ‘Satvein Patal’ Since 2014

Since 2014, PM Modi's administration has extradited over a dozen fugitives, including Tahawwur Rana, Chhota Rajan, and Ravi Pujari, showcasing a strong stance against terrorism and crime

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PM Modi (left) had expressed anger over Tahawwur Rana evading trial in India during the Congress rule.

In October 2009, Pakistan-born Canadian Tahawwur Rana —accused of the 26/11 mayhem in Mumbai that killed 166— was arrested by the US authorities. India, which witnessed a bloodbath due to the plot hatched by Rana and his childhood friend David Coleman Headley, wanted one thing — let him come back to India and face justice.

However, the US authorities tried him under various charges, including support to Lashkar-e-Toiba. Cut to June 9, 2011, when Rana was convicted for his terror acts in Denmark, but was acquitted in the terror conspiracy against India — adding salt to the wounds of 140 crore Indians.

Narendra Modi, who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat, did not mince words either against the US, which too had its citizens killed in the 26/11, or the Congress-led UPA, which was in power back then. He said the US had “disgraced the sovereignty of India" and called the event a “major foreign policy setback" for the Congress-led government in power.

Cut to April 10, 2025, Tahawwur Rana was extradited to India where Modi is now the prime minister.

While Rana’s extradition is seen as an emphatic diplomatic victory and an example of PM Modi’s resolve for a no-nonsense approach toward terrorism, it is not the only one for Modi, who in a rally once called the size of his chest of “56 inches". Since Modi set his feet in New Delhi in 2014 after a landslide victory for his Bharatiya Janata Party, beating the Congress— Modi’s administration has dragged more than a dozen fugitives and terror accused back to India from abroad through extradition. He was as if on a mission to honour his commitment made in an election rally speech, “Even if they are at the ‘satvein patal’, I won’t spare them"— referring to India’s most wanted evading arrest in foreign countries.

As Rana faces the Indian justice system and pays for his crimes in one of India’s most dastardly attacks, a look at some of the most wanted brought back to India since 2014.

1. JAGTAR SINGH TARA: He was extradited from Thailand in January 2015. Tara was convicted for the assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. Tara has been lodged in a high-security cell under 24-hour CCTV surveillance. He is not allowed to move out of the compound where the cell is located. Earlier, he, along with two other assassins and a murder accused, Devi Singh, had escaped from the jail in 2004 after digging a 104-foot-long tunnel. While two of them were arrested a few years later, Tara was arrested in Thailand in 2015.
2. BANNANJE RAJA: Raja aka Rajendra Kumar was a most wanted gangster who was extradited from Morocco in 2015 after investigations revealed his involvement in the December 2013 murder of a businessman, R N Nayak, in the Ankola town of the Karwar coastal region. In 2022, a sessions court in the Belagavi district of Karnataka sentenced the dreaded gangster to life. He was a kingpin of organised crime in the region.
3. CHHOTA RAJAN: Extradited from Indonesia in November 2015, Chhota Rajan or Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, a notorious underworld figure, was involved in murder and extortion. He worked under India’s most wanted Dawood Ibrahim. Rajan and his men were involved in the murder of another gang leader Ashok Joshi from Vikhroli during a gang war between Dawood and Arun Gawli, in 1988. He is known to have made many extortion calls. On 25 October 2015, he was arrested in Bali, Indonesia from where was extradited.
4. ANUP CHETIA: Chetia is linked to insurgency in the North East and waging war against India. He is also the General Secretary of the banned outfit ULFA. He was accused of various crimes including killing, kidnapping and extortion. However, it is his anti-India involvement that made him a big catch. He was extradited from Bangladesh in November 2015.
5. WILLY NARUENARTWANICH: This Thai national was involved in waging war against India. He was involved in a criminal conspiracy for the illegal procurement of a shipload of sophisticated arms and ammunition from a foreign country, in which a top functionary of NSCN (IM), Anthony Shimray, was arrested by the NIA. His involvement in insurgency in the northeast through arms trafficking made him the most wanted in India. One year into the Modi Sarkar, he was extradited from Thailand in December 2015.
6. ABDUL WAHID SIDDIBAPA: Siddibapa was wanted in a case of terror conspiracy by Indian Mujahideen to attack various places in India. He was actively involved in recruiting members for the terror organisation and funded their activities from Dubai. He too was extradited from the UAE in May 2016, to face justice.

   #TahawwurRana | NIA seeks 20 day interrogational custody of the accused from court @anany_b shares more details #tahawwurranaextradition #NIA | @JamwalNews18 pic.twitter.com/WJKH2qpS7c— News18 (@CNNnews18) April 10, 2025

7. CHRISTIAN JAMES MICHEL: One of the biggest scams during the Congress-ruled UPA era was the AgustaWestland scam and Michel was the alleged middleman in the helicopter scam. Both the CBI and ED wanted him. Michel, a British national, was extradited from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in December 2018. He was charged under Section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, for alleged money laundering by the ED.
8. RAJIV SAXENA: Saxena was an accused-turned-approver in the AgustaWestland case. The Dubai-based businessman Saxena was extradited to India on January 31, 2019, in connection with the scam relating to the purchase of 12 VVIP helicopters from AgustaWestland. Saxena, director at two Dubai-based firms — UHY Saxena and Matrix Holdings — was one of the accused named in the charge sheet filed by the ED pertaining to the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland scam.
9. DEEPAK TALWAR: Talwar was a corporate lobbyist who was wanted by the CBI in a case of receiving illegal foreign funding. It was alleged that Talwar, being the president of a registered society, namely, M/s Advantage India received foreign contributions from 2012-2013 to 2015-2016 to the tune of Rs 90.72 crore from France and England-based companies. Talwar was extradited from the UAE in January 2019.
10. SANJEEV CHAWLA: In a country where cricket is the great unifier, Sanjeev Chawla was accused of playing with the game. Chawla, who was allegedly involved in a match-fixing racket, was extradited from London and brought to Delhi in 2020. He is wanted in India to face charges of match-fixing during South Africa’s tour in 2000. Under the Modi regime, it was India’s first successful extradition since the treaty was signed with the UK in 1992. What was seen as the Modi government’s diplomatic victory was that even the European Court of Human Rights refused to intervene in Chawla’s case.
11. RAVI PUJARI: This Mumbai gangster was staying in West African countries posing as Antony Fernandes, a respectable businessman. He had disappeared in 1994 and had been staying in West African countries like Burkina Faso. But his downfall began after he started targeting several politicians in Karnataka from 2015 to 2018 with an extortion bid which finally led to his extradition from Senegal in February 2020. The government activated its Indian missions in African countries like Senegal, Ghana and Burkina Faso which finally led to his capture and eventually extradition.
12. TAHIR MERCHANT: Tahir Merchant was actively involved in the 1993 Mumbai blasts, working as a Dawood aide. Merchant, who had aliases like Tahir Takla, had allegedly arranged the finance for the blasts and was also linked to other conspirators such as Tiger Memon. He was brought back to India from the UAE in April 2022. He eventually died in the Yerawada Central Prison in Pune.

MODI’S 2011 TWEET & COMMENTS

As 26/11 plotter Rana was brought to New Delhi from the United States on Thursday night and the NIA released his photo with his back towards the camera, officially confirming the success, Modi’s tweet from June 10, 2011 tweet went viral.

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The BJP also latched onto the opportunity to release Modi’s old comments about Rana evading conviction during Congress rule, contrasting it with Thursday’s successful extradition.

BJP’s National Spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari told News18, “Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, India’s zero-tolerance policy on terror has ensured the extradition of global terrorist Tahawwur Rana—sending a strong message to the world. This is the Modi Doctrine: pro-nation and uncompromising on terror. Unlike the Congress era, which was pro-terror for appeasement politics, India under PM Modi eliminates terror."

Location :
New Delhi, India, India

First Published:
April 11, 2025, 14:23 IST