The Canadian government is pushing to revoke the citizenship of a Pakistan-born businessman accused of playing a key role within the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India that left 166 dead.
Documents obtained by Global News show that immigration officials have notified Tahawwur Rana Hussain that they intend to strip him of the Canadian citizenship he acquired in 2001.
The 65-year-old immigrated to Canada in 1997, and was later convicted in the USA of plotting to attack staff at a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Mohamed.
He’s currently in custody in India, where he is awaiting trail on charges alleging he facilitated the Mumbai attack that was carried out by Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.
But in its decision, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada wrote that Hussain’s citizenship was being revoked not for terrorism, but relatively because he lied on his application form.
When Hussain applied for citizenship in 2000, he claimed to have lived in Ottawa and Toronto for the previous 4 years, with only a six-day absence from the country, the IRCC wrote in a report.
An RCMP investigation, nonetheless, determined he had actually spent almost that entire time in Chicago, where he owned several properties and businesses, including an immigration firm and a food market.
The revocation decision accused him of “a serious and deliberate deception,” and said his “lack of respect for the citizenship laws of Canada” had led immigration officials to wrongly grant him citizenship.
“Yours is a case through which it appears that you just misrepresented your residence in Canada throughout 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 consider that you just had met the residence requirements for citizenship, when it appears you had not.”
The federal government said it was referring his case to the Federal Court, which has the ultimate say on whether citizenship was obtained by “false representation or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances.”
A Toronto immigration lawyer representing Hussain, also generally known as Tahawwur Hussain Rana, has appealed the choice, arguing it was unfair and violated his rights.
A hearing related to the revocation was held in Federal Court last week. Government lawyers asked the court on Dec. 19 for permission to withhold sensitive national security information from the case.
An immigration department spokesperson told Global News that cancelling citizenship for misrepresentation was “a crucial tool for maintaining the integrity of Canadian citizenship.”
To make sure the process is fair, the Federal Court makes the ultimate decision in such cases, Mary Rose Sabater said. “The Government doesn’t take the revocation of citizenship frivolously.”
She said she couldn’t say what number of such revocations had occurred since the department didn’t track them, but a review by Global News identified only three such decisions prior to now decade.
‘A Canadian is a Canadian’
Tahawwur Rana is escorted to court in Recent Delhi, India, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Dinesh Joshi).
Revoking the citizenship of convicted terrorists became a politically-charged issue greater than a decade ago, after Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government enacted a law that allowed Ottawa to achieve this — so long as the person had a second citizenship.
In the course of the 2015 federal election campaign, the Liberals portrayed the laws as a type of two-tiered citizenship and promised to repeal the law, using the slogan “a Canadian is a Canadian.”
Once elected, the Liberal government axed the law and reinstated citizenship to greater than a dozen convicted terrorists who had been stripped of their Canadian nationality.
But under the Liberals, the federal government has continued to take steps to revoke the citizenship of Canadians implicated in terrorism — although only on the grounds of misrepresentation.
In 2024, Marc Miller, then the immigration minister, said he was looking into revoking the citizenship of Ahmed Eldidi, who was arrested for allegedly plotting an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in Toronto.
His comments got here after Global News reported that the Egyptian-born Canadian had obtained citizenship despite having allegedly appeared in an ISIS execution video through which he dismembered a prisoner in Iraq.
The documents on the Hussain case show that in 2023, the federal government of then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau re-initiated revocation proceedings that began under the Harper Conservatives.
“It is necessary to notice that the premise of those renovation proceedings is solely rooted within the allegations that you just directly misrepresented your residence in Canada during your relevant residence period for Canadian citizenship,” the IRCC wrote to Hussain.
“The onus is on the applicant to be honest and truthful throughout the whole thing of their immigration and citizenship application processes leading as much as the grant of citizenship.”
Tahawwur Rana Hussain obtained Canadian citizenship by claiming he lived in Ottawa when the RCMP alleged he was actually residing at this Chicago home. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty).
Should the Federal Court approve revoking Hussain’s citizenship, he would retain his status as a everlasting resident, meaning he could still enter Canada and reapply for citizenship after ten years.
But first he faces a high-profile trial in India, where the Islamist attack he’s accused of aiding has had a deep impact and fractured relations with Pakistan, where the terrorists were based.
The three-day siege on the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, a Jewish community center and other locations in Mumbai was considered one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern history. Two Canadians were among the many dead.
Following the incident, Hussain allegedly said in intercepted communications that the victims “deserved it,” and the terrorists who conducted the assault should receive medals for “gallantry in battle.”
Due to Hussain’s citizenship, the case has helped feed India’s portrayal of Canada as a national security threat, although in accordance with the documents obtained by Global News, he never truly lived within the country.
The attempt by immigration authorities to strip his citizenship is moving forward in court as Prime Minister Mark Carney is working to revive relations with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Carney is anticipated to go to Recent Delhi, where he’s in search of a trade deal, although the RCMP accuses Modi’s government of murdering a Sikh activist in Surrey, B.C., in 2023, and plotting to kill other Canadian opponents.
Canada also believes India has worked in cooperation with the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, which is answerable for most of the extortions which have spread fear in cities with large South Asian populations.
Who’s Tahawwur Rana Hussain
Chigaco food market owned by Tahawwur Rana Hussain, who allegedly obtained Canadian citizenship by falsely claiming he lived in Canada. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty).
Hussain served within the Pakistani military before immigrating to Canada as a talented employee, crossing the border via Windsor’s Ambassador Bridge on Sept. 28, 1997, along along with his wife and three children.
Three years later, he applied for Canadian citizenship, writing on his forms that he had resided within the country since his arrival. He was approved and took the oath of citizenship on May 31, 2001.
But questions arose after he was arrested in Chicago in 2009 on charges alleging he was involved within the Mumbai attacks, in addition to a plot to kill staff of Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
Government documents show that 12 days later, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada asked American authorities for details of his U.S. immigration status and travel history.
Canada’s immigration department received the “package of knowledge and documentation” from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Nov. 26, 2009, and asked the RCMP to research.
A jury convicted Hussain of planning attacks in Copenhagen and providing material support to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, but acquitted him of direct involvement within the Mumbai attack.
The RCMP wrapped up its in investigation in October 2012, and informed immigration officials that Hussain had been living in Chicago throughout the time he had claimed to be a resident of Canada.
Although he had not spent enough time within the country to qualify for citizenship, Hussain had lied in his application form as a way to acquire status as a Canadian national, in accordance with the allegations.
Chris Alexander, who was then the Minister of Immigration within the Harper government, signed the paperwork recommending the revocation of his citizenship for misrepresentation.
India’s National Investigative Agency with Tahawwur Rana Hussain following his extraditiom from the U.S.
NIA
On June 10, 2020, India asked the U.S. to extradite Hussain to face charges over the Mumbai attack. Two weeks later, Canadian immigration resumed efforts to revoke his citizenship.
In 2024, Canada notified Hussain it was sending his case to the Federal Court for a call, dismissing his complaints that he was chronically in poor health and thought he had met the residence requirements.
“Briefly, I all the time thought that I’m maintaining my Primary Residence in Canada,” he wrote in a letter. “In my Canadian citizenship application I didn’t knowingly conceal material circumstances or committed [Sic] fraud.”
The U.S. announced on April 10, 2025 that Hussain, described within the news release as a “Canadian citizen and native of Pakistan,” had been extradited to India to face 10 charges over the Mumbai attack.
“I’m glad that day has come,” U.S. President Donald Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, wrote on X, noting that six Americans were amongst those killed throughout the assault.
India has accused Hussain of giving his childhood friend Coleman Headley, a U.S. citizen who had modified his name from Daood Gilani, a fake cover story so he could travel to Mumbai to scout potential targets for the LeT.
Using the ruse that he was opening a branch of his immigration business in Mumbai, and that Headley was the office manager, Hussain allegedly helped his alleged co-conspirator get an Indian visa.
“Over the course of greater than two years, Headley allegedly repeatedly met with Rana in Chicago and described his surveillance activities on behalf of LeT … and LeT’s potential plans for attacking Mumbai,” the U.S. Justice Department wrote.
His arrival in India garnered national headlines, with the National Investigation Agency calling the “mastermind” of the Mumbai attack and a “Canadian national.”
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca