Ahead of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to India, the Canadian government has initiated proceedings to revoke the citizenship of Pakistan-born businessman Tahawwur Rana Hussain, accused of playing a key role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
Rana, 64, a Pakistan-born Canadian national, is a close associate of one of the main conspirators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, David Coleman Headley, alias Daood Gilani, a US citizen.
Documents obtained by Global News show that immigration officials have informed Rana of their intent to strip him of the Canadian citizenship he acquired in 2001. He immigrated to Canada in 1997 and was later convicted in the United States of plotting to attack staff at a Danish newspaper.
Rana, described as the mastermind behind the 26/11 attack that killed 166 people, was extradited from the United States to India in April 2025. He was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) upon landing in New Delhi.
According to the report, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said the move to revoke his citizenship was not based on terrorism charges but on alleged misrepresentation during his application process.
When Rana applied for citizenship in 2000, he stated that he had lived in Ottawa and Toronto for the previous four years, with only a six-day absence from Canada, the IRCC noted in its report.
However, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigation found that he had actually spent most of that period in Chicago, where he owned several properties and businesses, including an immigration firm and a grocery store.
The revocation decision accused him of “a serious and deliberate deception,” adding that his “lack of respect for the citizenship laws of Canada” resulted in immigration officials granting him citizenship in error.
“Yours is a case in which it appears that you misrepresented your residence in Canada during the application process for citizenship by deliberately failing to declare your absences from Canada,” IRCC wrote to him on May 31, 2024.
"Your misrepresentation led decision makers to believe that you had met the residence requirements for citizenship, when it appears you had not.”
The government said it was referring the matter to the Federal Court, which has the final authority to determine whether citizenship was obtained by “false representation or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances.”
A Toronto-based immigration lawyer representing Tahawwur Rana, also known as Tahawwur Hussain Rana, has appealed the decision, arguing that it was unfair and violated his rights, the Global report said. A hearing in the case was held in Federal Court last week.
Government lawyers also sought the court’s permission on December 19 to withhold sensitive national security information from the proceedings.
An immigration department spokesperson told Global News that cancelling citizenship for misrepresentation was “an important tool for maintaining the integrity of Canadian citizenship.” To ensure fairness, the Federal Court makes the final determination in such cases, Mary Rose Sabater said.
"The Government does not take the revocation of citizenship lightly.”
She added that she could not provide figures on how many such revocations had taken place, as the department does not track them, though a Global News review identified only three such decisions over the past decade.