The Week India – August 04, 2019

30 THE WEEK • AUGUST 4, 2019

COVER STORY

ASSAM

Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta

special director-general of

police (border)

n INTERVIEW

Everybody is

under the

scanner

BY RABI BANERJEE

It is being alleged that the border

police has made a mess of the

process for finalising the National

Register of Citizens?

No, [the process] has been going on

for several decades. Things took a big

turn in 2005, when a five-judge bench

called the influx from Bangladesh

as an invasion and silent aggression

that could not only upset the state’s

population balance, but also change

its sociology. There is no way we

could have sat and relaxed after such

a historic verdict. The Supreme Court

ruled that, based on the Foreigners

Act, 1946, and the Foreigners (Tri-

bunals) Order, 1964, we needed to

[track] suspects and submit reports

to the foreigners’ tribunal.

People say they are being

harassed even if they have all

documents.

The law is clear. The border police

can check the papers of any

suspect. If the documents don’t

match, the matter is referred to the

tribunal. The border police don’t

do anything more. The arrests

of people declared as foreigners

by the tribunal are done by the

regular police, and not by my

department. Now, the interesting

thing is, no one admits that he or

she is a foreigner. So my officers have

to suspect all.

But people say their cases are

referred to the tribunal even if they

submit valid documents.

Do you know that fudged documents

are rampant? There is a father-renting

syndicate in Assam. Many people

‘buy’ fathers, along with birth, educa-

tion and school-leaving certificates.

They fail to do that in a clinical way,

which is why they are caught.

So people forge documents?

I won’t say all. I will help all rights

activists, who are protesting the NRC,