A four-member team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) will soon travel to the US to bring back the alleged 26/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind Tahawwur Rana, sources in the security establishment said on Tuesday.

The US Supreme Court on Saturday cleared Rana’s extradition to India.

“The US Supreme Court’s ruling has cleared the legal hurdle for his extradition and allowed Indian authorities to accelerate the process of bringing him to justice. Indian authorities are constantly in touch with US agencies and an NIA team will soon leave for the US. The external affairs ministry and the home ministry have asked the NIA to keep its team ready to fly to the US,” said a security official with the home ministry.

Rana is at a detention centre in Los Angeles.

Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana

India has long sought the extradition of 64-year-old Rana, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin who is believed to have been one of the masterminds of the 26/11 terror attacks that claimed the lives of at least 166 people and left more than 300 injured.

“Indian agencies are awaiting the final nod from the US secretary of state. Once the approval comes it will becommunicated to Indianauthorities through the US embassy,” the home ministry official said.

Sources in the NIA said a four-member team that includes an inspector-general and a deputy inspector-general had been formed to fly to the US. Security officials are yet to take the final decision on which aircraft would bring Rana back.

“It could either be a chartered flight or a military aircraft,” said an NIA official, adding the accused will be lodged in Tihar jail after his arrival to face trial for several offences, including criminal conspiracy, waging war against the government of India, forgery and murder.

The agency had in 2011 filed a chargesheet against nine people, including Rana, accusing them of planning and executing the attacks. In 2014, a Delhi trial court issued non-bailable warrants against them after the NIA listed them as “absconders”.

Rana’s interrogation would help investigators unearth new details and the missing links in the planned terror attack of November 26-29, 2008, that pushed India to the brink of war with Pakistan, sources said.

Rana is known to be associated with Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators behind the 26/11 attacks. Headley was arrested in October 2009 by US authorities and sentenced to 35 years in prison for his involvement in the Mumbai attacks.