Relative claims Rana is innocent

A relative of suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Tahawwur Hussain Rana, arrested by FBI on terror charges, today claimed that he was upset over the publication of a cartoon of Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.

"He (Rana) is a very pious person, and he can never do something like this (plot terror attacks). He had told us that he had protested before the media against the Danish cartoonist. This is why the Americans are deliberately using this to malign him," his aunt, Suraiya Bano told a TV channel here.

Rana was arrested along with Pakistani origin US national David Coleman Headley by the American probe agency for planning major terror attacks in India and in Denmark at the behest of Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Security agencies are also probing the alleged role of Rana, a Pakistan-born Canadian citizen and resident of Chicago, in last year's Mumbai terror attacks.