28 THE WEEK • AUGUST 4, 2019
COVER STORY
ASSAMtional Register of Citizens published
last year. Sanima Begum made the list
since her father was a documented
citizen, unlike Sanaullah’s father. But
the children were excluded because
they had used Sanaullah’s legacy
data—a set of documents that proves
that one’s ancestors were residents of
Assam before 1971.
More than 40 lakh residents did
not figure in the draft NRC published
last year. On June 26 this year, more
than one lakh more names were
dropped from the list, taking the total
number of persons declared ineligible
for citizenship to more than 41 lakh.
Around 900 people are now lodged in
detention centres in the state.
“It means the exercise would never
end, and that there could be many
more branded as Bangladeshis and
deported. What is happening in As-
sam is horrific,” said Akram Hussein,
state coordinator of the Association
for Citizen’s Rights, which fights
the cases of people who have been
excluded.
Interestingly, Sanaullah is not the
only Army veteran to be branded
Bangladeshi. In 2017, the border
police declared that his cousin Ajmal
Haque was a foreigner. A retired sub-
edar, Ajmal sought the Army’s help.
“I got their immense support,” he
said. “They gave me all old certificates
and documents, which I produced
before the police. The support of the
Eastern Command was huge and the
border police was forced to drop my
c a s e .”
Sanaullah was staying in Ajmal’s
house when THE WEEK met him.
According to Ajmal, Sanaullah’s
decision to take the legal route was a
mistake. “He should have sought help
from the Army. But he made the mis-
take of taking the help of a lawyer and
prolonging the case, which landed
him in this crisis,” he said.
Sanaullah and Ajmal’s cases date
back to 2008, but they had not kept
track of the progress. It was only after
the cases were handed over to theforeigners’ tribunal, in 2017, that they
were notified. Ajmal was notified just
after he retired from the Army. “What
helped me was that I was posted in
Guwahati just before my retirement,”
he said. “My retirement papers were
cleared from here. So I was able to
take help from the Army.”
Sanaullah had also hung up his
Army boots by the time he came to
know that his case had reached the
foreigners’ tribunal. His decision to
take legal aid, perhaps, harmed his
case because he had failed to inform
senior officers of the border police
of his plan to litigate against the
department. Ajmal said he was also
unaware of Sanaullah’s case initially.
According to documents accessed
by THE WEEK, the case against
Sanaullah was registered on May
23, 2008, when he was posted in
Manipur. Sanaullah allegedly told
the police then that he was born in
Dhaka district in Bangladesh and was
not formally educated. According to
the report, he admitted that the doc-
uments he possessed did not havethe real names of his wife and three
children. He also allegedly told the
police that he was a labourer who did
not own land. The transcript of his
statement to the police bears a thumb
impression, which Sanaullah says is
not his own. “If I could become an
Army officer, why would I use my
thumb impression?” he asked.
The border police had produced
statements of three witnesses—
Amjad Ali, Kurban Ali and Subhan
Ali—to support its finding that
Sanaullah was a Bangladeshi. But all
three witnesses deny giving such a
statement. “The report is completely
bogus,” Amjad Ali, a businessman at
Kalahikash, told THE WEEK. “Neither
was I called by the police and nor did
I willingly go to the police station to
say Sanaullah is a Bangladeshi.”
Amjad said Sanaullah was the pride
of their village. “He is a very upright
man and a brave soldier who fought
for India in Kashmir,” he said. “We are
proud that Kalahikash produced two
Armymen—Sanaullah and his cousin
Ajmal.”he investigating officers
would not even get out of
their offices to meet the
accused. Their intention
is to drive out Bengali-
speaking Hindus and
Muslims from Assam.
—Ajmal Haque
Army veteran and Sanaullah’s cousin