20 THE WEEK • AUGUST 4, 2019
COVER STORY
ASSAMo one would talk about the
labelling of Bengali-speaking
Muslims in Assam as
Bangladeshis. No investigation
is done; no report established
with facts.
—Samsul Islam
Nephew of Moulavi Muhammad Amiruddin, the
first deputy speaker of the Assam assemblydoor to the hut is Samsul Islam, 70,
son of Amiruddin’s elder brother
Muzaffar Hossain. Samsul’s two sons,
Rafikul and Moijul, have been tagged
as Bangladeshis. Moijul’s case is be-
ing heard by the foreigners’ tribunal,
while its Nagaon bench has already
declared Rafikul an illegal immigrant.
Their ordeal has left the family
seething. “What are you going to
do?” shouted Moijul when I asked
him about his case. “You would
further complicate the situation and
the court would banish us for going
to the media. Leave us; we will be
deported to Bangladesh soon.”
Surprisingly, Samsul’s name was in
the draft list published last year. But,
with his two sons in the dock, he fears
that he, too, would lose citizenship.
Recently, more than one lakh names
were dropped from last year’s list,
and the persons were given 15 days to
prove that they were Indians. Samsul
fears that his name figures in the
exclusion list. “I am yet to be notified
that I have been taken out of the list,”
he said.
Samsul remembers the days when
the Congress’s national leaders used
to visit his uncle’s house. Amiruddin
died in 1965 and young Samsul was
part of his funeral procession. At least
once a year, Congress leader and for-
mer Meghalaya chief minister Mukul
Sangma calls on Samsul. Amiruddin
was Sangma’s maternal grandfather.
“Senior Congressmen like
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and Rajendra