The Gujarat High Court has ordered release of a person detained by Gujarat’s Special Operation Group, on suspicion of being a Bangladeshi national, as principles of natural justice were not followed upon his detention. The Division Bench of Justices Sonia Gokani and Nirzar S Desai noted that the detaining authority has unbridled powers and a report was prepared against the detainee without awarding him any opportunity of being heard. He has been kept under detention since June 2020.

Background

The petitioner’s son was allegedly illegally detained by the Special Operation Group (SOG). She submitted that she has been living in Ahmedabad for a long time and has an Election Card, Ration Card as also Aadhaar Card. But when the corpus (her son) was born, registration of his birth was unknown to her, as she was unlettered. She stated that she was even rehabilitated with her family in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots of 2002 and received a plot and Rs. 50,000/- from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation in the name of her husband Sidiq Doudbhai Shaikh.

In June 2020, her son was detained by SOG on the suspicion that he is an illegal migrant from Bangladesh and was taken to a detention center. She made several visits to the police station as well as the detention centre, but her son was not released, hence she moved court.

She submitted that her son “is illegally detained in absence of any FIR or any formal complaint and without any sincere efforts to identify the genuineness of his citizenship. This conduct has become a trend and the only victims of this atrocious conduct are the poor citizens of India staying in slums and who are marginalized and voiceless.”

She further submitted, “What is fundamentally flawed in the whole attempt to detain and question the citizenship of the detenue is the fact that when his parents’ citizenship is not questioned and they are deemed to be citizens of India then, how could their child’s citizenship be put to scrutiny and that too, in the complete violation of due process.”

She put forth her complete family history right from her grandparents to her husband’s family lineage and how her husband had moved from West Bengal to Ahmedabad in search for work after which he married her in Ahmedabad itself. She also submitted that they are casual labourers and have a meagre source of income.

She further submitted that her son was born in 1984 and Section 3 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 provides that all those who are born on or after 26th Day of January, 1950 but before the 1st Day of July, 1987, shall be citizens by birth; further both his parents are citizens of India. Even in his School Leaving Certificate it is stated that he was born in West Bengal.

Plight of other detainees

Narrating the plight of other detainees, the petitioner submitted that “15 to 18 other detenue in the SOG premises are there, and one detenue named Zahid is lodged there for about more than 8 years. One Mr. Pannu is there for more than 4 years. A lady is also there for a long time who is separately kept in presence of women police. There is one detenue namely Saiful who was brought a day prior to the corpus and others and they are languishing there without any proper inquiry or trial in SOG Centre.” She added that there was no allegation of custodial violence of ill treatment against SOG by her son.

Respondent’s submissions

The SOG submitted that the corpus, Amir Sidikbhai Shaikh is the citizen of Bangladesh and is originally resident of Village: Diyadanga Post Kaile, Thana: Kaliya, District: Nodail (Bangladesh). He was detained and he never produced any documentary evidence to prove citizenship. He was detained under Section 3 (2)(g) of the Foreigners Act, 1946 and under Section 5 of the Foreigners Order, 1948 so also as per the notification of the State Government dated 02.12.1960. It was further submitted that except the copy of the Aadhaar Card, no other document had been produced and as per section 9 of The Aadhar Act, the Aadhar Card is not the document of citizenship.

Comments of Additional Solicitor General

The court had called upon Additional Solicitor General Devang Vyas to address the Court on the procedure of deportation of illegal nationals. He stated that there are two kinds of persons who can be called illegal:

– those who have already travelled on a travel document and such a document has expired and they continued to stay illegally, and,

– those who have entered illegally.

In the latter, the first step would be verification of nationality to begin the deportation process. The State Authority would contact the ministry of external affairs and would request nationality verification, the ministry would send to the High Commission of Bangladesh requesting them to verify the nationality, to issue a travel permit and upon verification of nationality, such travel permit is issued and deportation of the detainee happens. However, there is no time frame for this process.

The court noted the procedure to be followed under the Foreigners Act and noted that for the purpose of prohibiting, regulating or restricting the entry of foreigners into India the Central Government has the power to make provision either generally or with respect to all foreigners. Therefore, to say that by way of interim measures, the powers exercised are of only restriction, does not go with the scheme of the provision which does not provide for the restriction but speaks of the arrest, detention or confinement.

The court further noted that under section 8 when a foreigner is recognised as a national by law of more than one country or where it is uncertain what nationality is to be ascribed to him, he may be treated as the national of the country with which he appears to be most closely connected for the time being in interest or sympathy or of the country with which he was last so connected.

The court being conscious of precedents and also conscious of the fact that in the event of deciding the question of nationality, the issue shall have to be raised before the appropriate authority by the petitioner, restricted its inquiry into the validity and propriety of the order passed by the civil authority by examining the principles of administrative law. It said, “It shall have to be questioned as to whether the order passed was legal, rational and the procedural propriety also shall need to be inquired into. The principle of natural justice would demand the hearing as also considering the material which has been placed before the authority concerned.”

The court noted that the inquiry made by the detaining authority was limited to the visa and passport of the corpus at the time of detention and at this stage, before the court, many other documents were produced. “There has been no inquiry at all made of the parents of the present corpus as the mother is the petitioner and her nationality is not questioned nor doubted even,” the court pointed out. The court also noted that the corpus has no criminal background and has a wife of Indian nationality and has children as well. It observed, “The Central Government has delegated the powers to the civil authority which is from the State Government and the powers also are given to them to inquire into the nationality of a person, therefore, the powers are to be exercised in accordance with law. The least that is expected of the person who has been given such wide and vital powers of recommending the deportation of a person on the basis that he is not an Indian national, is to avail an opportunity of hearing to the person concerned.”

The court specifically noted that it had questioned the Prosecutor as to whether there is any notice given and a separate opportunity has been made available for those who have been suspected as foreign nationals, to adduce the relevant material for proving the nationality.

The Court did not cast any doubt on the identity of the corpus and noted that his entire family is in India, and said, “The report prepared by the DCP was without even availing opportunity to the corpus and the Additional Commissioner has acted upon the same. We are conveyed that till date, nothing has moved and the corpus continues to be at the detention centre. When serious flaw is noticed in observing principles of natural justice, without entering the issue of nationality, on a limited ground of non-availment of opportunity, this Court deems it appropriate to intervene and to that limited extent, indulgence would be inevitable, noticing unbridled powers assigned to the authority, of course, for catching illegal/unauthorized nationals. Resultantly, the opportunity requires to be availed noticing apparent breach of administrative law and very peculiar facts concerning respondent no.3 and his family.”

The court directed that the corpus be released within one week of this order on certain terms and conditions to ensure his availability if he cannot satisfy the authority on the strength of his testimonials.

The complete judgement may be read here:

Related:

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Gauhati HC directs petitioner to apply for citizenship under CAA
Assam woman first declared Indian, then foreigner; Gauhati HC sets her free

The post Guj HC orders release of suspected foreigner detained without being given opportunity to be heard appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Delhi High Court has asked the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to inform the court of the procedure to be followed to repatriate foreign nationals, who do not have any documentary proof of their native country. The bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh was dealing with a petition filed by 3 Bangladeshi nationals housed in shelter home in Delhi.

The Kamla Market Police Station informed the court that the 3 petitioners were could not provide any documentary proof in their support but they claim to be Bangladesh citizens and also informed that they do not have any criminal antecedents. The police station has also sent a request letter for deportation to Bangladeshi High Commission.

The court took notice of these submissions and directed the MHA to place on record:

(i) The procedure to be adopted in such cases where no documentary evidence exists in respect of the nationality of a foreign national;

(ii) The procedure for repatriation/deportation of such foreign nationals; and

(iii) If such a procedure exists, the time period and formalities to be completed for the same.

The court has directed MHA to file an affidavit in this regard by May 13. The case will next be heard on May 17.

The order may be read here:

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The post Delhi HC seeks procedure of deportation of foreign nationals found without documents appeared first on SabrangIndia.

BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya became the laughing stock of the nation when he remarked that he suspected some of the labourers conducting repair work in his house were Bangladeshi because they ate poha, a snack made from puffed rice.

NDTV quoted Vijayvargiya saying, “There is some construction work going on at home. Outside, I saw some six-seven labourers sitting with one thali piled up with a huge amount of poha — maybe 10 plates — and eating. I asked, why are you eating poha? They did not answer because they could not speak Hindi. Then one man said they are Bengalis. I suspected something. I asked why they had been hired here. The answer was, they are cheap labour.”

Poha is a beloved snack in different parts of India including Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.

Shockingly, Vijayvargiya made the statement in Indore, a city known for its Poha pride. Twitter swung into action to educate the ignorant politician. Hashtags like #PohaTwitter and #PohaOnMyPlate started trending. Sample this salvo by proud poha-loving Indoris:

https://twitter.com/Banoliyaa/status/1220786992553709568

According to this poha fact, indore is going to declare as one of the state or capital of bangladesh. Damn in indore every nukkad offers poha and mostly every poha is tasty here. Wait does bangladesh have good poha?
Never mind. Poha jalebi Shyd hi hoga. #Poha #PohaTwitter

— yash banoliya (@Banoliyaa) January 24, 2020

https://twitter.com/madhavmantri/status/1220708817689882626  

#PohaOnMyPlate is a kind of compulsion or the taste of Indore, of which every Indori is proud of, the same Indore to which @KailashOnline belongs and has made his political career from!
With this, he has tried to burn the tradition of Indorehttps://t.co/xq40bGIYkV

— Madhav Mantri (@madhavmantri) January 24, 2020

And here’s more:

https://twitter.com/reshma_alam9/status/1220666939241947137  

I hate POHA !

Can I use this as a proof that I’m an INDIAN? #PohaOnMyPlate

— Reshma Alam (@reshma_alam9) January 24, 2020

https://twitter.com/GDnarbhakshi/status/1220733083823099905

I have heard Sudama took “Poha” for Krishna & he loved it
“Bangladeshis” not just infiltrated Bharat but Mahabharat too ??#PohaTwitter #PohaOnMyPlate #KailashVijayvargiya pic.twitter.com/fnUjbNWYpg

— जनरल नरभक्षी (@GDnarbhakshi) January 24, 2020

https://twitter.com/TXingh/status/1220771305777057792

One of my friend marked safe #PohaTwitter pic.twitter.com/6cfUxA3QMe

— Tajiinder Singh (@TXingh) January 24, 2020

https://twitter.com/Devil1nDetail/status/1220898082084159488

Look what I found on my #poha this morning#PohaOnMyPlate #PohaTwitter pic.twitter.com/qG61Nf72i9

— Pao (@Devil1nDetail) January 25, 2020

Vijayvargiya may have been lampooned by poha-loving Indians, but his anti-Bangladeshi stand cannot be ignored in the present political climate. With the burgeoning movement against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the National Population Register (NPR) and the recently concluded National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, there is a strong united voice emerging against divisive forces of the ruling regime.

However, of late, there has been an increase in instances of people being harassed after being accused of being Bangladeshi. Recently, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike demolished huts of alleged Bangladeshi immigrants in the Kariyammana Agrahara area. The residents of the impoverished shanty-town were mostly daily wage earners. Social media videos had claimed that illegal Bangladeshi immigrants were sheltered in the settlement. The video of the demolition was also shared on Twitter by Mahadevpura’s BJP MLA Aravind Limbavali where he too reiterated the stance alleging that the residents were illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.

But, upon investigation, it was revealed that most residents of the settlement were from different parts of the country, including Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and even north Karnataka. The High Court has stayed the demolition for now, though many residents have been forced to go back to their home states.

Earlier in October 2019, 29 men, 22 women and nine girls were picked up during a raid in Marathahalli, Bellandur and Ramamurthy Nagar areas of Bangalore. The people detained were mostly daily wage workers earning their living as construction labourers, garbage collectors and doing menial jobs under contractors. Some of them are also employed by the contractors of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). In November, 59 of them were transported to West Bengal for eventual repatriation with Bangladesh.

The post Twitter makes BJP leader eat humble Poha! appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Guwahati, January 9, 2020: The leader of the opposition and the Congress legislature party in Assam, Debabrata Saikia has dared BJP strongman and minister of state for finance and health,  Himanta Biswa Sharma to disclose the name of any person from the Congress fold who is a Bangladeshi national or of Bangladeshi origin. The statement of Debabrata Saikia comes hours after Himanta Biswa Sharma alleged that 90% of the Congress legislators in Assam are Bangladeshi! Himanta Biswa Sharma had made the allegations yesterday (January 8) while attending a BJP rally at Dhemaji in upper Assam. He is reported to have said, “Ninety % of the Congress legislature party in Assam is Bangladeshi. They may be citizens, but their forefathers came from Bangladesh. They are of Bangladesh origin. “

Taking strongest note of the false and fabricated statement of Sharma, Saikia added, “thesame people who have created a hue and cry around the existence of Bangladeshis in Assam, are today propagating that Congress has 90% ‘Bangladeshi’ MLAs in the state. Like “Ashathama hoto” he has also tried to salvage his own falsehood by explaining that “may be they are citizens but their forefathers have come from Bangladesh”. This is nothing short of a move to extricate himself from facing legal action. But, I have gone through his statement seriously. I have found that his statement is not only false and fabricated, but it is illegal in the eyes of the law. There are enough points to haul him up legally. We will not spare him for constantly resorting to such propaganda,” said Debabrata Saikia talking to SabrangIndia.

“There is no legislator from the Congress, who has any sort of relation with Bangladesh. Bangladesh was formed on March 25, 1971. Not even a single MLA nor their forefathers have come to Assam after the formation of Bangladesh. There maybe some Congress MLAs with forefathers from erstwhile East-Bengal who came to Assam from undivided India before 1947. They have migrated from one province to another within the same country which was then undivided India. No one can insult them or humiliate calling them “foreigners” nor by tagging them to a country which was born 50 or 100 years after their migration. I challenge Himanta Biswa Sharma to name and prove that any MLA from the Congress who is Bangladeshi or Bangladeshi origin.” Debabrata Saikia further said, “if Himanta Biswa Sharma fails to disclose any name of a Congress MLA who is either a Bangladeshi or Bangladesh origin, he owes an apology to the people of Assam. Or else, all Congress legislators will knock the door of judiciary to take legal action against these derogatory remarks of Himanta Biswa Sharma. ” 

Just two days ago, Himanta Biswa Sharma had even claimed that the AIUDF MLA, Ananta Kumar Mallo, belonging to the Badaruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF has come to Assam from Bangladesh after 1971”. On this, Debabrata Saikia said, “if Ananta Kumar Mallo has come to Assam after 1971, the speaker of Assam legislative Assembly must inquire and take necessary action in this regard.”

Related:

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HimantaBiswaSarma: ‘Once CAB passed, detention camps will shut for Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians’
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Behind Shadows: Tales of Injustice from Assam’s Detention camps
Assam Detention Camps: At least 10 people released in compliance with SC order
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‘Not Religiously Persecuted’: Amit Shah on Why Muslims Excluded from Citizenship Bill
Will push CAB afresh, have new NRC: HimantaBiswaSarma
National Register of Citizens: How the BJP is turning regional conflicts into national campaigns of hate

The post Disclose name of Bangladeshi legislator from Cong or face legal action: Saikia, Assam appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Guwahati, September 17: The entire debate around outsiders and foreigners has been based on the long held belief that Bangladeshi infiltrators are threatening the demography and culture of Assam. But now, as per a community wise break-up of the over 19 lakh people excluded from the final National Register of Citizens (NRC), nearly a third of the people left out of the list are actually non-Bengali people, many of whom belong to indigenous tribes and ethnic groups. Shockingly thousands of Karbis, Rabhas, Sonowal Kacharis and even Ahoms have been excluded from the final NRC!

Meanwhile, it has emerged that out of the total persons dropped from final NRC, at least 8 lakh people have at least one person from their ARN or family tree, if not their entire families have been included in the final NRC. These people have been dropped due to minor discrepancies in their names, titles, ages or acceptable linkage documents. Of these, at least 2 lakh are minor children. For these two lakh chidren, ironically,both parents’ names have been included in final NRC; but the child has been excluded without giving any proper reason.
 
Meanwhile, a fresh campaign of misinformation has been kickstarted by the communal-chauvinist combine in the state. While a former Chief Minister of Assam recently declared that there are 30 lakhs of illegal Bangladeshi in Assam, he wonders how the number has come down to only 19 lakh. They are also quoting former Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta and former Minister for State, Home Affairs, Union of India who had earlier declared that there are 60 lakhs and 40 lakhs of illegal Bangladeshi residing in Assam. The publication of the final NRC list has dumped cold water over their divisive agenda.
 
All people included in the NRC have had to jump through various bureaucratic hoops and a variety of checks and balances. While the ‘Original Inhabitants’ got some exemptions in terms of submitting certain documentary evidence, Bengali Hindus or Muslims were not offered these relaxations. Their names have been included only because of documentary evidence, not at any one’s behest.
 
According to Nandu Ghosh, CJP Volunteer Motivator for Lower Assam, “The target group (for the) NRC was either Bengali speaking Hindus or Muslims. The continuous support and effort of various social and rights organizations, have alleviated the suffering of the maximum possible number of people. Because of this, excluded persons among Bengali speaking Hindus and Muslims are now under 12 lakhs. Though this is still a huge number for us, the communal-chauvinist combination of Assam Movement are not satisfied with these figures.” Ghosh adds, “It is also important to note that, out of 12 lakhs Bengali speaking people, at least one third are children or such persons of which either their parents’ names or names from their family or family tree have been already included in final NRC.” Ghosh also points out another important aspect of exclusion. “If the Citizenship card, Migration Certificate or Refugee inmate Certificates would have been accepted– in accordance with the Modalities, SOP of the NRC and as per Supreme Court directives– at least two-thirds of the Bengali Hindu Population excluded from final NRC would have not been affected,” says Ghosh.

The post Over 7 lakh Hindus among those excluded from the NRC, leaked data suggests appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Photo Courtesy: Moneycontrol

It is time Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi reins in Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah and his friends from vitiating the process of updating the National Register of Citizens for Assam, which aims to separate genuine Indian citizens from those the State defines as “illegal immigrants”. Through their venomous speeches they have turned the exercise into a tool for communal polarisation and terrorising Indians outside the northeastern state in a bid to gain votes.

Justice Gogoi has a reason to worry because he and Justice Rohinton F Nariman have been supervising the updating exercise. Even though there have been many claims of faulty exclusion from the National Register of Citizens, the process has acquired credibility precisely because the Supreme Court’s monitoring of it has been devoid of political motivations.

But this perception is likely to change, if it has not already, because of the manner in which Shah and the BJP have been invoking the National Register of Citizens to frame the undocumented immigrants issue in India. This comes at a time polls in five states – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram – are imminent. Ever since July 30, when the final draft of the National Register of Citizens was made public, Shah has been explicitly or implicitly crediting the decision to identify such immigrants to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This is downright fiction. The exercise to update the National Register of Citizens in Assam – for the first time since 1951 – was because of a Supreme Court ruling in 2013. Modi and the BJP had not yet come to power then. Judges are not inclined to demand credit. But what is worrying is the gradual politicisation of the National Register of Citizenship updating process.

For instance, on August 4, at a public rally in Rajsamand district of poll-bound Rajasthan, Shah said, “The BJP government has undertaken the screening of illegal Bangladeshis in the country but Congress is opposing so that their vote-bank remains intact.” He, however, also said at the rally, “There is a Supreme Court order and we will ensure it is implemented and they are identified.”

But it is not the BJP government but the bureaucracy, working under the supervision of the Supreme Court, which is engaged in the exercise of updating the National Register of Citizens. Nor is it correct to describe the 40 lakh people who did not make it to the final draft of the National Register of Citizens as “illegal Bangladeshis”.

For one, they all have yet another chance to prove their citizenship before the register is finalised. It is likely that the figure of 40 lakh could go down dramatically. Second, those who fail to make it to even to the final National Register for Citizens will still not become “illegal immigrants”. In each case, that status will have to be judicially determined.

But such legal subtleties are lost on Shah. In Gangapur town of Rajasthan on September 22, Shah was reported as saying, “The BJP government brought NRC [National Register of Citizens] and prima facie identified nearly 40 lakh illegal immigrants.”

Depending on what Shah speaks and where, it could very well appear to his listeners that the Supreme Court’s role in the updating of National Register for Citizens was either nominal or subservient to that of the government. Or, worse, both were working in tandem.

Us vs them

This should worry the chief justice because Shah has fashioned the National Register of Citizens into a veritable instrument for both terrorising and polarising people. In doing so, he has violated the very spirit of the observation that the bench of Justice Gogoi and Justice Nariman had made after the final draft of National Register for Citizens was released. They had said, “Court would like to observe that what has been submitted is a complete draft NRC [National Register of Citizens] which, naturally being a draft, cannot be the basis for any action by any authority.”

For sure, the Modi government has not taken any action on the basis of the draft. Nevertheless, in language both menacing and virulent, Shah has laid out a template for what that action would be in the future. For instance, in the rally at Gangapur, Shah said: “The infiltrators have eaten the country like termites.”

The only way to tackle termites is to eradicate them. The use of the word “termites” conjures a violent imagery, suggestive of the liquidation of human beings as a solution even though it is possible Shah did not literally mean it. Equating illegal immigrants with termites certainly dehumanises them. But it was not a one-off lapse. Shah repeated the word “termites” again at a rally in Madhya Pradesh, another poll-bound state. “While you [farmers] feed the people, they [soldiers] guard our borders,” Shah told the crowd at Ratlam on October 6. “But infiltrators are like termites, which eat away at the country’s security. They need to be removed.”

The National Register of Citizens is fast emerging as the most potent weapon of “othering” segments of Indians – that is, treating people of one group as outsiders and enemies. This is discernible from an analysis of Shah’s public speech in Delhi on September 23. “There are illegal infiltrators in Delhi,” he said. “Are they not a problem, tell me? Shouldn’t we remove these illegal infiltrators? Illegal infiltrators in crores have entered the country.” In Shah’s imagination, the 40 lakh people who could not make it to the final draft of the National Register of Citizens for Assam have multiplied to crores of infiltrators who slip through the borders to settle in different parts of the country. In Delhi at least, Shah described illegal infiltrators as those who “throw bombs and kill innocent citizens”.

Shah resorts to ambiguity of language because undocumented immigrants have never been perceived as a demographic or economic threat in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh or Delhi. His description of undocumented immigrants consequently becomes an innuendo against Indian Muslims, some of whom have been convicted in terror activities in the past. His references are in the nature of dog’s whistle that seeks to arouse the majority community’s suspicion of Muslims. Alarmingly, in Delhi, Shah again resorted to the termite imagery. “Like termites, they have eaten the future of the country,” he said. “Shouldn’t they be uprooted?”

The issue of undocumented immigrants has a long history. But what is new is the projection of the National Register of Citizens as a magical mechanism that was not available earlier to sift such immigrants from genuine citizens. Shah is implying that it is imperative to introduce the mechanism across India as there are, according to him, “crores of infiltrators” in the country.

It is this twisted logic that has had Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattarpromise that the National Register of Citizens will be updated for his state too. This will certainly terrify Haryana’s Muslims, who comprise just about 7% of the state’s population. Economically and educationally backward, their citizenship will be imperilled in the absence of requisite documents to prove it. Unlike Assam, the people of Haryana do not have a tradition of maintaining documents dating decades ago. However, the Hindus of Haryana will not fear the National Register of Citizens because their names will become a foolproof guarantee of their citizenship status. Haryana is not a border state. After Partition, unlike Assam, it has not reported an influx of Hindus from Pakistan or Bangladesh. From this perspective, the National Register of Citizens has become a tool for profiling and tormenting Muslims.

Supreme Court must act

The Supreme Court has been understandably sensitive on the National Register of Citizens issue. For instance, when the coordinator of the National Register of Citizens, Prateek Hajela, told the Indian Express in August that it was premature to describe as infiltrators the 40 lakh people who could not make it to the final draft, Justice Gogoi and Justice Nariman severely reprimanded him. “We should be holding both of you [the other person was registrar general Sailesh] guilty of contempt and sending both of you to jail. Whatever you say they all reflect on us,” the justices said.

Shah and leaders of the BJP are not officers of the court. Yet there can be little doubt that their pronouncements have brought the National Register of Citizens into disrepute, which, as it was in the case of Hajela, also reflects on the Supreme Court. Might not Chief Justice Gogoi take suo motu notice of Shah’s comments to rein him in from turning the National Register of Citizens into a darkled symbol of the future awaiting the nation?

Courtesy: Scroll.in
 

The post Hate Speech, Polarisarion, NRC & Amit Shah: Must the SC Act ? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Mumtaz Dewan, the daughter of Kamala Begum, and her father.
 

The Idea Of a ‘Foreigner’:
The Assam Accord, signed in 1985, has played an extremely important role in this regard. The issue of ‘foreigner’ was central to this Accord. Contested migrations after two partitions (1947 and 1971) along with a subsequent surge in Assamese nationalism resulted in a policing of “foreigners”. As a result, the Assam accord enlisted a series of measures to be taken as part of a Memorandum of Understanding between the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the All Assam Students Union along with Assam Gana Sangram Parishad. One of the most important points of the Accord was that all ‘foreigners’ who had arrived after March 1971 be expelled from the state.

The Creation of a D voter:
Following the Accord, it was in July 1997 that the Election Commission of India (ECI) asked the state government to segregate its citizens and non-citizens. Following this, the ECI prepared a list of voters in the state and mark ‘D’ (doubtful) next to the names of people who were suspected to be non-citizens. In 1997, this list included 3.5 lakh names. As of February 2017 according to Assam Parliamentary Affairs minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, the Assam Border Police were conducting investigations into 6,21,688 cases related to foreigners till October 2016. Of these, 4,44,189 were referred to the 100 Tribunals established in the state, where about 2,01,928 cases are still pending.

Detentions:
Among the cases that have been ‘resolved’ however, are the stories of about 1,800 persons who have been detained across Assam on charges of being a Bangladeshi. Even the most cursory conversations with the families of the detained people show that almost all the detainees belong to poor families who could barely afford any lawyers or appeal against the judgement issued by the Foreigners’ Tribunal. Since this issue comes under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and Foreigners (Tribunal) Order, 1964, a lot of times the lawyers are unaware of how to approach the case but nevertheless take it for easy money.

In this three-part series, TwoCircles.net looks at how detention camps are wreaking havoc with the lives of people, especially Muslims, across the state. In the second of a three-part series, we tell the story of Kamala Begum, a middle-aged Bengali woman who was born and brought up in Barpeta. However, due to a mix of legal complications and incompetent lawyers, Begum has been in detention for nearly three years now with no hopes of coming out. After her arrest, her daughter’s dreams were crushed and her husband remains bedridden, dependent on well-wishers to survive.

Read Part One Here

The month was September, the year 2015. Mumtaz Dewan, then 19, was in her fourth semester at the Kayakuchi College located in the Kayakuchi village of Sarthebari Tehsil of Barpeta district. During one of her classes, her mobile rang. It was her mother, Kamala Begum, calling. This was not something unexpected, Mumtaz thought. She called her back after the end of her class, only to be stunned by what her mother said on the phone. “I am in the SP office…my appeal was dismissed in the Gauhati High Court. They are going to take me to the detention camp,” was all she could say before she burst into tears on the phone. In just a few minutes, the lives of Mumtaz and Kamala changed forever.

Nearly three years later, Mumtaz says she remembers the entire day like it happened yesterday as she welcomes us to her father’s house. It is an extremely overcast day and as there is no electricity, we sit in near darkness until Mumtaz opens a side-door. The house was allotted to the family as part of the Indira Awas Yojana in the early 70s. As we sit on plastic chairs, she begins telling us about the tragic story of Kamala Begum, her mother and an ‘illegal Bangladeshi’ residing in Assam.

“My mother was declared a D voter in 2014…that time, she used to work in the Barpeta office of a Guwahati-based NGO, cleaning dishes and making tea,” Mumtaz says in the beginning. With a salary of Rs 3,000, she took care of her ailing husband but more importantly enrolled her daughter in college so that she could study and make a career. “That was her biggest dream,” Mumtaz says, as her voice begins to quiver. “She did not have a son and my elder sister had already got married, so she wanted to do everything to ensure that I can become something and take care of them,” Mumtaz says, now in tears.

Kamala Begum.

When her name was listed as a Doubtful voter in 2014, Kamala Begum was incensed. Usually, after a person is deemed D Voter, he/she receives a summons from the Foreigners’ Tribunal asking him/her to appear before the Tribunal and prove their citizenship. But Kamala did not have the patience to wait. “She went to the Tribunal on her own accord…for her, this was a matter of disrespect and extremely insulting. She would say ‘How can I be called a Bangladeshi when I have lived all my life here’? She wanted to do everything in her power to get rid of that label,” Mumtaz recalls. However, once in the Tribunal, things began to go downhill for Kamala.

Kamala might have been passionate about her case, but, as Mumtaz points out, she was illiterate and could not understand the legal proceedings. She was born about 20 km away from her home in Kayakuchi in the same district but had never voted in her native village. “There is every chance that in some documents, her name’s spelling might have been misspelt or that her name appeared on another electoral roll. It could also be that her father’s name might have been spelt wrong which put her legacy in question,” Mumtaz says. The family was not helped by the fact that their lawyer in the Barpeta Foreigners’ Tribunal was incompetent.

Saiful Islam, Kamala’s nephew and the only member of the family who can manage to visit her regularly, explains. “When she lost her case in the FT towards the end of 2014, we were shocked. The lawyer, who I do not wish to name, took a lot of money but clearly did not do his job well. So, we approached the High Court hoping that the ruling will be overturned.” he says.

Until the Gauhati High Court passed a verdict, she was mandated to appear in the Barpeta SP office every month. “I do not know how or why, but the case in High Court also fell apart,” says Mumtaz. “In September 2016, when my mom went to appear before the SP, she was told that her case had been dismissed in the HC also and that she was under arrest. Our lawyer, who was arranged by a political leader following our pleas, was so uninterested in the case that he did not even bother to inform the family,” she adds.

The arrest of Kamala brought Mumtaz and her father’s life to a complete standstill. Left without the only breadwinner in the family, Mumtaz and her father had to depend on their extended family to meet even the basic needs. With only two semesters left, Mumtaz had no choice but to drop out of college. “Who would pay my fees in the absence of my mother?” she says, her voice still shaking from the traumatic memories of the period. “I went from the chances of building my career to being married to my uncle’s son within months. Now, I was just another housewife with no independence and with no one to take care of my father,” she says. By now, tears are rolling down her cheeks as her father, who is sitting next to her, stares at us dead silent. Even though it is March, he is wrapped in two old shawls and on days he is feeling better, he can barely manage to go the toilet.

“After marriage, you are a member of that family. You have to do things the way they want you to do…my in-laws are much more considerate than my sister’s in-laws but they also don’t want me to be visiting my mother every week or month. In fact, last year I met her after a gap of nearly 12 months and haven’t been able to meet her since,” she says. Given that she has no money of her own, she cannot ask her in-laws to pay for the travel and give her money so that she can give some to her mother, Mumtaz says.

But the bad news did not end for the family here. After the HC, the court managed to go to the Supreme Court also, only for her case to be rejected there also. “Till date, we do not know why our case has been rejected…the HC and SC refused to overturn the FT order but even now we do not know what exactly did the FT find so fishy about her case,” Mustafa Ali, Kamala’s brother, says. Sitting next to him is the mother of Kamala Begum, Rashida Begum who is in her early 90s. Barely able to walk and partially deaf, Rashida starts crying the moment she hears her daughter’s name. “I haven’t seen my daughter in three years now…my family says she has a tumour and diabetes…I want to see her before I die. How can they do this to my daughter,” Rashida says in a tearful voice. “People around me ask: why don’t you go to see her? I tell them how can I? I can barely walk and will not be able to sit on a bus for so long…it hurts me so much every time I think of her. She was born in this house,” she adds.

It is a question that still brings tears to all the family members. “We are all Indian citizens until now at least…then how can she be a Bangladeshi? How does this even happen and what can we do about this? Will they send her to Bangladesh? No. They just want her to die in the detention camp,” says Mumtaz. “To be honest, even deportation would be better than the condition in which she is being kept right now. No human deserves to be treated like this, least of all an Indian citizen in her own state,” says Saiful.

Courtesy: Two circles

The post ‘My mother is dying in a detention camp because of being labelled a Bangladeshi. How can this be allowed?’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Sajahan Ali talking to TwoCircles.net about his detention.
 

The Idea Of a ‘Foreigner’ :
The Assam Accord, signed in 1985, has played an extremely important role in this regard. The issue of ‘foreigner’ was central to this Accord. Contested migrations after two partitions (1947 and 1971) along with a subsequent surge in Assamese nationalism resulted in a policing of “foreigners”. As a result, the Assam accord enlisted a series of measures to be taken as part of a Memorandum of Understanding between the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the All Assam Students Union along with Assam Gana Sangram Parishad. One of the most important points of the Accord was that all ‘foreigners’ who had arrived after March 1971 be expelled from the state.

The Creation of a D voter :
Following the Accord, it was in July 1997 that the Election Commission of India (ECI) asked the state government to segregate its citizens and non-citizens. Following this, the ECI prepared a list of voters in the state and mark ‘D’ (doubtful) next to the names of people who were suspected to be non-citizens. In 1997, this list included 3.5 lakh names. As of February 2017 according to Assam Parliamentary Affairs minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, the Assam Border Police were conducting investigations into 6,21,688 cases related to foreigners till October 2016. Of these, 4,44,189 were referred to the 100 Tribunals established in the state, where about 2,01,928 cases are still pending.

Detentions :
Among the cases that have been ‘resolved’ however, are the stories of about 1,800 persons who have been detained across Assam on charges of being a Bangladeshi. Even the most cursory conversations with the families of the detained people show that almost all the detainees belong to poor families who could barely afford any lawyers or appeal against the judgement issued by the Foreigners’ Tribunal. Since this issue comes under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and Foreigners (Tribunal) Order, 1964, a lot of times the lawyers are unaware of how to approach the case but nevertheless take it for easy money.

In this three-part series, TwoCircles.net looks at how detention camps are wreaking havoc with the lives of people, especially Muslims, across the state.

In the first of the three-part series, we tell the story of Sajahan Ali, an Assamese-speaking Muslim who was in jail (detention) for 11 months on charges of being an illegal Bangladeshis. While he may be out now, the case has broken his family, left him with no savings, a sizeable burden to pay off and a mortgaged house.

A week before Ramadan was about to begin, Sajahan Ali, a resident of Buzurg Manikpur village in Barpeta District, had gone over to his mother’s house for the night. Dining at a stone’s throw away from his own house, Sajahan decided to call it a night in his mother’s house while his wife and two children remained home. At that time, Sajahan Ali did not realise that this was the last night his family was together. Around midnight, the police knocked on the door. Ali, confused and scared, thought that they had come to arrest him for a small-time feud which took place a few months ago. “I remember that night well…when the police came, I thought it was because I was involved in a local feud and a fellow resident of this village had filed a complaint. But I did not understand why they needed to arrest me in the middle of the night,” Ali says in a conversation with TwoCircles.net.

TwoCircles.net met Ali in a village called Kukiripada, located about 30 km from his village, where he was working with other men erecting electric poles as part of the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana. It has only been three days since he came out of the jail but Ali has little time to take rest or reflect on what happened over the past 11 months. Having erected the last pole for the day, Ali and other men sit down to discuss the trauma that Ali has undergone in the past year. “It was only when I was produced before the Foreigners’ Tribunal that I realised that I had been arrested on charges of being an illegal Bangladeshi in Assam,” he says. “I was shocked…all my life, I had been living here without any such issue. I voted in 2016 state elections and all elections before that. How did I become a Bangladeshi all of a sudden?”

Within a few days, Ali, who is in his early 40s, went from being a poor resident of an Assamese village to a poor ‘illegal Bangladeshi’ in Assam. He was now one of the about 1,800 people who had been put in one of the six ‘detention camps’ in Assam. Talking about his case, Ali explains, “When my case was brought to the Foreigners’ Tribunal, I found that I had been a D-voter (doubtful voter) since 2005 and that I was being arrested because I had failed to reply/honour any of the court summonses that had been sent to me.”

But like most of the cases of D-voters, Ali’s case was much more than what met the eye. Turns out, Ali says, he had been declared a doubtful voter in the same district (Goalpara), but in a different Tehsil (Dudhnoi) in 2005. Over the next 12 years, as the court paper shows, he had been sent a summons seven times by the Foreigners’ Tribunal but he never showed up so finally, he had been tracked down and arrested. “My voting is in Buzurg Manikpur, which falls under Goalpara East. I was declared a doubtful voter in a Tehsil and village that I had never resided in. How was I to know what happened?” Regarding the summons, he says, “I was supposedly sent a summons but at an address where I have never lived. Then how am I supposed to respond? If you live in one village and a letter comes for you in another village, how are you at fault?” he asks.

Ali’s claim might be valid, but this did not matter much when it came to the legal implications. As the summons went unanswered, his case was declared ‘hanging’ and the Assam Border Police, which is the main security force which looks after this issue, pushed for an ex-parte decree in this case. An ‘Ex parte decree’ is a decree passed against a defendant in absentia. On the date of hearing, if only the plaintiff appears and a defendant does not appear, the Court may hear the suit ex parte and pass a decree against the defendant. So, while Ali had been working as a labour in Assam and then in Meghalaya, the Police were on a ‘lookout’ for him.

All of this meant that after he was arrested in July, he was sent to the Barpeta detention camps, located about 100 km from his residence. Inside, he realised that being an illegal Bangladeshi was even worse than being a criminal. “We were kept separately from the convicts and treated much worse too. The food was horrible, the hygiene was non-existent and we had no money. We could not even work in the jail.”

Nurul Islam, a lawyer based out of Goalpara who handled Ali’s case, explained how the case unfolded “After Sajahan Ali was arrested, we approached the Gauhati High Court for a stay order since the FT had passed an ex-parte order. It took us nearly four months, but we finally got the stay. Then, the case was contested in Foreigners’ Tribunal and I presented all the required proof of residence on behalf of Ali. Earlier this month, Ali finally won the case in the FT and he was free after nearly eleven months in jail.”

Given that most people sent to detention camps either spend years inside or are still inside, one might even say that Ali was lucky: he, after all, came out within 10 months. But of course, the arrest has taken a massive toll on his life. “In the days following my arrest, my wife left with my son and went to her parents’ place. I am not sure why she did so…maybe she thought I would never come back. I haven’t even seen my son in almost a year…my daughter, who had got recently married, was sent back by her in-laws after they came to know that I had been arrested as an illegal Bangladeshi. Thankfully, my brother and his wife along with our extended family took care of her. My brother is also a worker. When I was in jail and we had an appeal in the High Court, he had to mortgage his brother’s house to raise the much-needed money. Now, Ali is scared thinking if/when he will lose the house. “I don’t know how I will save my house…and even if I save my house, my family is broken…who will live there?” he asks.

In such cases, the need for legal aid becomes paramount but given the complexities of the issue, there are no such facilities available for the detainees. “In any other case in Indian courts, if the accused cannot afford a lawyer, he/she is provided one by the government. But not in these cases…similarly, once sent to detention, there is no bail, no parole not even to appear in your own case even when you appeal the verdict in the High Court,” says Islam.

As we end our conversation, Ali can barely hold his tears. He says, “I am a poor person but I had a family. I lost a year’s worth of income, I have almost lost my house and my wife and son left me…for what? How can I be a Bangladeshi when I have lived here all my life, like the rest of my family?” He shrugs off any idea that he should file for compensation. “I do not have the time, money or the courage to approach the courts again…when you see the condition in which human beings are made to live in these detention camps, you thank Allah for bringing you out of it. I hope others also come out…it is hell inside. No human being, Indian or Bangladeshi, should ever be made to live like that,” he says.

Courtesy: Two Circles
 

The post A broken family, a massive debt and a mortgaged house: How Sajahan Ali’s life was destroyed due to false ‘Bangladeshi’ charges appeared first on SabrangIndia.