New Delhi: With Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney scheduled to visit India later this week, immigration officials in Ottawa are pushing to revoke the citizenship of Tahawwur Rana, the alleged mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.
The 65-year-old Canadian national of Pakistani origin was extradited to India from the US last April, and awaits trial for facilitating the 2008 attacks, carried out by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group.
Documents obtained by Global News show that immigration officials have notified Rana that they intend to strip him of the Canadian citizenship he acquired in 2001, four years after he immigrated to Canada.
Upon asking about it, Canadian authorities emphasised that Rana’s citizenship was not being revoked due to his involvement in terror activities, but due to false statements he furnished in his citizenship application form in 2000, Global News said in its report.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the authority responsible for managing immigration policies, visas, and passport granting, said he claimed to live in Ottawa and Toronto for four years, while he actually lived in Chicago, where he had multiple properties and businesses.
The authorities said that he had committed “a serious and deliberate deception”, and showed a “lack of respect for the citizenship laws of Canada”.
The IRCC further wrote to him, “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.”
The case has been transferred to the federal court, which will deliver the final verdict on his alleged misrepresentation. However, the advocate representing Rana has said they will appeal the case to the higher court.
Tahawwur Hussian Rana is a Pakistani-Canadian who served as a doctor for the Pakistan Army Medical Corps. He later migrated to Canada as a skilled worker with his wife and three children.
After three years, he applied for the Canadian citizenship through a declaration that he had been living in the country upon his arrival. In May 2001, his citizenship application was approved, and he was granted citizenship upon oath.
In 2009, he was arrested in Chicago for his alleged involvement in the Mumbai terror attack. He was also allegedly involved in plotting the killing of staff members of Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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