For 68-year old Johrabai Shaikh, history has repeated itself, and how. As she stood at the Esplanade Magistrate court on Tuesday, defending her 27-year-old grandson, Nabi Shaikh who was taken into custody for illegally entering the country, she must have been reminded of her seven days in custody in 1994 when she was held on the same charge.
The Free Press Journal reported that arguing against Nabi’s remand, his advocate Mohammed Hussain told the court that in 1994 the youth’s grandmother had been acquitted on a similar charge after the court had found her to be an Indian citizen. However, posing no query about Johrabai’s case, the court remanded Nabi to custody till Thursday.
Adiya Shaikh, Nabi’s sister had explained that Nabi worked at the docks where he did insulation work and had gone there to help his uncle to sell fish at Antop Hill from where he was arrested. The same spot from where Johrabai was arrested 26 years ago while the family lived there.
18 years ago, on December 2, 2002, standing in the same building as Nabi, Johrabai, then 50, had received her acquittal of being an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant by metropolitan magistrate SS Shirke after the court had said that the documents tendered by her proved that she had been residing in Mumbai for years, a fact that dispelled doubts about her nationality.
Speaking about Johrabai Shaikh, Magistrate Shirke had said, “She produced an identity card issued to her by the Election Commission which allows her to take part in the election to the house of people and the legislative assembly, which she cannot possibly do unless she is a citizen of India. She has also produced a new passport issued to her by the Government of India. After expiry, a new passport was issued to her…the passport cannot be issued unless the applicant is a citizen of India. These two documents prima facie indicate that she is not a foreigner in India.”
The court had also observed how she had produced both her old and new ration cards, a domicile certificate and the birth certificate of her daughter and observed, “The police cannot act arbitrarily but need to conduct a discreet inquiry before prosecuting a person alleged to be a Bangladeshi.”
On Tuesday, Johrabai asked the court that if it was convinced that she was Indian, how could they pronounce her son to be a Bangladeshi? When she was asked about how long she had been in India, she said, “Meri aankhen hi idhar khuli. Wo humein Bengali hai bol ke, Bangadeshi bolte hain.” (My eyes opened here. Because we are Bengali they think we are Bangladeshis).”
Post the announcement of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), there has been a lot of confusion about the documents that are necessary to prove citizenship.
On February 12, 2020 a division bench of the Gauhati High Court said that the electoral photo identity card isn’t a proof of citizenship. On the same day, another bench observed that PAN card, bank documents, land tax receipts etc were not sufficient proof of citizenship.
However, on February 11, a trial court in Mumbai acquitted two persons under the Foreigners Act, 1946 by ruling that the electoral id card was sufficient proof of citizenship.
However, the government has still not taken a stand on which documents will be accepted as the official proof of citizenship.
In a press release it had said, “Citizenship can be proved by submitting any documents related to date of birth and place of birth. However, a decision is yet to be taken on such acceptable documents. This is likely to include voter cards, passports, Aadhaar, licenses, insurance papers, birth certificates, school leaving certificates, documents relating to land or home or other similar documents issued by government officials. This is likely to include more documents so that no other Indian has to suffer unnecessarily.”
However, with the debate around citizenship intensifying, the government has begun its crackdown on supposed illegal immigrants. There are hundreds like Nabi Shaikh who will potentially be bereft of a home in the country. Be it Karnataka or Maharashtra, the government and its allies are arbitrarily singling out people on the pretext of them being illegal immigrants without any proof.
While this is truly a citizenship issue where the minorities and the marginalized are set to be the worst-hit, the discussion has turned into a violent and communal one pitting one community against the other.
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