An India-born taxi driver serving a 20-year sentence for kidnapping and raping a female passenger at knifepoint in 2011 was stripped of his US citizenship, the Justice Department said Monday, the New York Post reported.Gurmeet Singh, 55, was convicted in 2014 over the violent sexual assault of a young passenger who had fallen asleep while he was driving her from Williamsburg to her East Village apartment in May 2011. Singh had applied for naturalisation just weeks after the incident.According to prosecutors, the woman woke up to find Singh on top of her with a knife pressed against her throat. He threatened her, tied and gagged her, blindfolded her and raped her before she escaped from the taxi and sought help from a passerby.The Justice Department said Singh concealed the crimes during his naturalisation proceedings and became a US citizen on October 19, 2011.“Singh unlawfully obtained the privileges of US citizenship by concealing horrible criminal acts,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division was quoted as saying by the New York Post.“The Department will continue to protect the integrity of the citizenship process and hold accountable those who defraud our immigration system,” Shumate added.Singh first entered the US in February 1992 on a six-month temporary visitor visa. He remained in the country without authorisation for years before a family-sponsored visa petition enabled him to become a permanent resident in June 2000.He is currently serving his sentence at Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Ulster County, New York, which also houses convicted serial killer David Berkowitz, known as the “Son of Sam”.A federal judge in Brooklyn, Nicholas Garaufis, issued an order last week requiring Singh to surrender his citizenship documents, including his naturalisation certificate and US passport, by September 16.
