AUGUST 4, 2019 • THE WEEK 21amsul’s two sons,
Rafikul and Moijul,
have been tagged as
Bangladeshis. The
Nagaon bench of the
foreigners’ tribunal
has already declared
Rafikul (in pic) an illegal
immigrant.Prasad visited our house and held
meetings with Gopinath Bordoloi
and my uncle,” said Samsul. “But to-
day, people do not think twice before
calling my family Bangladeshi.”
Samsul’s elder son, Rafikul, tried to
run when I called on him. As he has
officially been declared a foreigner,
the border police can arrest him any
time. “Just go away,” he shouted. “I
am a Bangladeshi. If my statement
and picture is published, the police
would catch me soon.”
The cases against Samsul’s sons
date back to 2003, but they did not
expect matters to come to such a
head. They had been voting in elec-
tions; but now their voter ID is not
valid.
Samsul said the border police
can tag anyone an illegal immigrant
by preparing reports using false
witnesses. In Morigaon district alone,
around 2,000 people have allegedly
been branded as such. “The law of
the land does not work here,” said
Samsul. “Assam today is not like the
rest of India. We talk about Gujarat
riots; but has anyone involved in
the Nellie massacre been punished?
There were 10,000 Muslims who lost
their lives in that massacre in 1983.
The same way, no one would talk
about the labelling of Bengali-speak-
ing Muslims in Assam as Bangla-
deshis. No investigation is done; no
report established with facts.”
Rafikul said his bail application
was pending in the High Court. The
authorities have warned him that
if he talked to journalists about his
case, he would be put in detention
camp.
Around 20km away from Kali-
kajari is Borchapori village, where
60-year-old Rahima Khatun is facing
deportation. Rahima has not been
on the voters list since 1997. A month
ago, the local bench of the foreigners’
tribunal summoned her. The tribunal
would try to find out whether she
entered India before or after March
24, 1971, which is the cutoff date for
citizenship claims as per the 1985
Assam Accord.
In the 1990s, the Election Com-
mission began sifting through the
voters list to remove non-citizens.
The commission appointed election
verification officers—mostly state
government officials—to authen-
ticate voters across the state. The
officers gave a report against Rahima
to the electoral registration officer in
Assam in 1997, and the ERO told the
border police that she could be from
Bangladesh. The superintendent of
the border police inquired into the
matter and submitted a report to
the foreigners’ tribunal, after which
Rahima was summoned. “You have
entered illegally into Assam without
any valid documents,” said the notice
she received.
Rahima’s father, Abdul Gaffur, was
the principal of the first higher sec-
ondary school in Morigaon district.
He had valid documents, including
educational certificates and a ration
card for his family, all of which date
back to the 1950s. Gaffur died in
2000.
Rahima and her son Faruq, whohas also been left out of the NRC list,
met THE WEEK in the drawing room
of their home. Clad in burqa, gloves
and socks, Rahima initially refused
to show her face. When Faruq asked
her to remove the veil, she revealed
her teary eyes. “She was born here,
studied here and married in the
same village,” he said. “My father is
no more and we did not preserve all
his documents. It seems now that
even a dead man’s records have to be
kept safe.”
Rahima said none of her ten
siblings are facing deportation. Her
brother Baharul Islam is a professor
of political science at a famous col-
lege in Assam.
She has land records in her father’s
name and a certificate from her
school showing that she had studied
up to Class 8 in the 1960s. But the
border police said the documents
were “fake” and referred the case to
the foreigners’ tribunal.
Even little children have not been
spared by the faulty process. At
Hatishala village in Kamrup district,
farm labourer Syed Ali and his wife
found that they were part of the NRC