Tahawwur Rana's citizenship to be revoked! Canada takes major step ahead of Carney's India visit

News Topical, Digital Desk : Ahead of Prime Minister Mark Carney's visit to India, the Canadian government is seeking to revoke the citizenship of Mumbai attack mastermind  Tahawwur Rana Hussain, who is accused of playing a key role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Rana, 64, is a Pakistani-born Canadian citizen and is close to David Coleman Headley alias Dawood Gilani, one of the masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Reached Canada in 1997

According to a Global News report, immigration officials have told Rana they want to strip him of his Canadian citizenship, which he received in 2001. He came to Canada in 1997 and was later convicted in the US for plotting to attack the staff of a Danish newspaper.

Rana, the mastermind of the 26/11 attacks, was extradited to India from the US in April 2025. He was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) upon his arrival in New Delhi.

Why is citizenship being revoked?

In its decision, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) wrote that Rana's citizenship was being revoked not for terrorism, but because he lied on his application form.

IRCC wrote in a report that when Rana applied for citizenship in 2000, he claimed he had lived in Ottawa and Toronto for the previous four years and had been out of the country for only six days. However, an investigation revealed he had actually spent almost all of that time in Chicago, where he owned several properties and businesses.

The decision to revoke his citizenship alleges serious and deliberate fraud, stating that immigration officials wrongly granted him citizenship due to his failure to respect Canadian citizenship laws.

"Your case appears to be one in which you provided false information about your place of residence in Canada during the citizenship application process, deliberately failing to disclose your absence from Canada," IRCC wrote to him on May 31, 2024.

It further read, "Your misinformation led decision-makers to believe you had met the residency requirements for citizenship, when it appears you had not."

What does the Canadian government say?

The government said it was referring his case to the Federal Court, which has the final say on whether citizenship was obtained by false information or fraud or by deliberately concealing essential circumstances.

The Global report further states that a Toronto immigration lawyer representing Tahawwur Rana has appealed against the decision, arguing that it was wrong and a violation of his rights.

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