Abdul Majid still recalls the day 21 years ago when police officials came to their village in Assam’s Barpeta district.
The border police, a unit tasked with investigating suspected foreigners in Assam, had come to inform the family that Majid’s younger brother Sirajul Haque was a suspected “illegal migrant”.
“We told them that he is not Bangladeshi but they did not listen,” Majid, a 70-year-old peasant said. “The police did not even visit our home. They did not check any documents, voter lists or land documents.”
Haque’s case eventually went to a foreigners’ tribunal, quasi-judicial bodies unique to Assam that rule on citizenship matters.
In September 2022, the tribunal passed an ex-parte opinion – an order passed in his absence – declaring that Haque was a foreigner.
But his family was not unduly worried. Only three years ago, all of them, including Sirajul Haque, had made it to the National Register of Citizens. The culmination of a demanding bureaucratic exercise carried out on the basis of citizenship documents dating back to March 24, 1971, the register was meant to be the final word on who was Indian in Assam.
Yet, on September 2, 2024, nearly two years after the tribunal order, Haque was held by the border police along with 27 others and sent to the Matia detention camp in Goalpara district.
His family then moved the Gauhati High Court to challenge the tribunal order. In order to do so, they had to lease their farmland, sell two of their cows and take a loan of Rs 50,000 for the legal expenses, which amounted to at least Rs 1.2 lakh, according to Majid.
When I arrived at Haque’s home in Haldia Gaon village on February 12 – a house with a tin roof on the banks of the Pokaloka river where his wife and five children live with his two elder brothers – his relatives were unaware of another legal twist to his predicament.
A week ago, the Supreme Court had pulled up the Assam government for failing to deport those held at the Matia detention camp. It had asked the government to start the process of expelling the 63 declared foreigners held there.
One of them was Sirajul Haque.
The Supreme Court’s directions came after the Assam government submitted in an affidavit claiming that the “63 detainees” – all Muslims – were “exclusively Bangladeshi nationals”. The government said it had not been able to deport them since they had not submitted “their addresses in the foreign country”.
What the Assam government did not tell the court was that the 63 people have homes and families in India.
Not just that. Scroll’s analysis has revealed that at least 20 of the 63 declared foreigners have challenged the order of the foreigners’ tribunals in various constitutional courts, including in the Supreme Court. Their cases are ongoing. Many of them have challenged their order with the state’s legal services authority.
We tracked down and met the families of seven of the 63 people. All of them contested the claim that they were from Bangladesh. They showed us documents that established they had been living in Assam for decades. They had legacy data which proved their Indian ancestry. They possessed land titles. Their names featured on voter lists. They said they had voted in many elections.
Six of the seven men even had their names included in the National Register of Citizens updated in Assam in 2019.
Ironically, the Supreme Court’s directions came in a 2020 petition by a woman from Assam’s Morigaon district, who had challenged the system of arbitrary arrest and detention of declared foreigners on the grounds that they “cannot possibly be deported to any foreign country in the foreseeable future”.
Rajubala Das, her husband Rajendra Das and their four children were declared foreigners on December 1, 2011, through an ex-parte order of a foreigners’ tribunal in Morigaon. Rajendra Das was later arrested and confined to the Matia detention camp in 2018.
Rajubala moved the Supreme Court two years later, arguing that detention at the camp was violative of Article 21 of the Constitution that protects the right to life and liberty.
Instead of providing relief to the detainees, the court has issued directions for their deportation.
In doing so, the court has ignored its own observations on the contentious record of the foreigners’ tribunals, whose orders have often been struck down by the higher courts.
As the case comes up for hearing in the Supreme Court on February 25, lawyers say the court must allow the detainees to challenge the tribunal orders in higher courts before it asks for their deportation. “The legal basis for labeling them as undocumented non-citizens must be established,” said a Guwahati-based lawyer, who requested not to be identified since she regularly contests cases in foreigners’ tribunals.
“It is the court’s duty to verify the records,” she added, “considering the significant number of foreigners’ tribunal orders that have been overturned due to illegality. Without conducting this thorough examination, proceeding with their deportation would constitute a grave injustice.”
Scroll spoke to the families of seven men about their citizenship trials. Many of them were unaware that the Supreme Court has asked the government to deport them.
Sirajul Haque, 54
Included in NRC, 2019
Case pending in Gauhati HC
“But how can he be a foreigner?” Haque’s brother Abdul Majid asked. “Our parents were born here. My mother’s name is in the 1966 and 1971 voter lists.”
His brother, Majid pointed out, had been voting in elections since 1989, had land titles in his name, had even been allotted a home under the PM Awas Yojana in 2018 – and been included in the National Register of Citizens.
“The NRC authorities verified and checked pre-1971 documents meticulously multiple times,” Majid said. “If we did not have any papers, how could they include my brother’s name in the 2019 NRC?”
Majid dismissed the Assam government’s claim that Haque was from Bangladesh. “We have no one there, we have never even been there,” he said in exasperation. “Bangladesh dhola na kala amra kobar pamuna. I don’t know anything about Bangladesh. Is it black or is it white?”
Ishab Ali, 53
Included in NRC, 2019
Case pending in Gauhati HC
“Will they arrest me again?” asked Ishab Ali.
On February 15, when Scroll reached his one-room shanty at Noonmati village in Barpeta district, it had been a day since Ali’s release from the Matia camp. But he was visibly rattled by the experience.
“I have become very weak,” he said. “My eye ailments have worsened. Inside the detention camp, we were locked in a cell from 6 pm to 6 am. We did nothing the whole day.”
In 2002, the Assam’s border police had raised a red flag, suspecting him to be an illegal migrant. Fifteen years later, a case was registered against him and in 2023 he was declared a foreigner by the foreigner’s tribunal in Bajali – and sent to the Matia detention camp last year.
On February 10, he was granted bail from the detention centre by the Gauhati High Court – after spending six months and eight days there.
His current advocate Debasmita Ghosh at Gauhati High Court said he did not get effective legal representation and his case was not properly argued before the tribunal. “We gave over Rs 50,000 to the advocate at the tribunal but he did not do enough to fight our cases,” his wife Nazma Khatun said.
Lawyers representing alleged “illegal immigrants” in Assam say that is routine. The legal process is labyrinthine and demanding, those in the dock mostly poor and uneducated – and legal aid scarce.
“One of the tragedies in the entire process is the lack of effective legal representation before the tribunals,” Aman Wadud, a lawyer who has represented many such cases at Gauhati High Court and Foreigners’ Tribunals. “Hardly any skilled lawyer represents a person whose citizenship is questioned because they cannot pay hefty fees.”
The accused often struggle to understand the scrutiny they are under. Ali told me he does not understand why he was arrested and sent to the detention centre but he asserted that he was an Indian by birth.
“I can’t read or write,” Ali said. “But I know that in 1983, the river Beki washed our homes at Ghilajari village and after that we shifted here to Noonmati. My mother's name is there in the 1985 voter list. My grandfather’s name is in the 1951 NRC. We have land documents too.”
Ali’s name was included in the 2019 National Register of Citizens.
Like many others, he was unaware of the recent Supreme Court order that could lead to his deportation till we informed him. “How can they send him to Bangladesh?” Khatun asked. “Let the Bangladeshi government provide a document to him saying he is a Bangladeshi, then only they can say that he is Bangladeshi.”
Falu Miya, 67
Included in NRC, 2019
Case pending in Gauhati HC
Zaruna Khatun lives in a home that was built with the help of a central government scheme – on a plot of land in Saupur village that was allotted to her husband, Falu Miya, in 1996 by the government as compensation for their homes being washed away in the floods.
But Falu Miya is not home. He has been at the Matia detention camp since August last year. “He got a government house, government land. He has been voting for years. Then how can he be a foreigner? Just because the government says so,” asked Khatun, who works as a domestic help.
In 1998, the Barpeta border police made a reference against Falu Miya on the suspicion that he was an “illegal migrant”.
Like in many cases, the border police’s suspicions were raised because Miya had moved – from Saupur village, where his house was washed away by a flood in 1993, to the neighbouring Udmari village. He returned to his native village once the government allotted him land.
In the past, intra-state migrant workers have faced cases from the border police as they traveled from lower Assam to Upper Assam.
In 2017, a case was registered based on the reference against Falu Miya “of Udmari village”. He filed his written statement before the Barpeta foreigners tribunal, denying the allegation brought against him.
But after that, Miya did not turn up at any hearing, nor did he provide any document to prove his nationality.
According to Akhtar Hussain, his counsel, Miya’s name had figured in voter lists from 1985, 1997, 2010 and 2024. Falu Miya also made it to the National Register of Citizens updated in Assam in 2019. There is also evidence that his father had voted in 1966 and 1970.
This is significant because the foreigners’ tribunals work on the same principles as the National Register of Citizens. An applicant or a person who has to prove her citizenship has to show documents that establish that they or their ancestors entered Assam before the midnight of March 24, 1971 to be considered as an Indian citizen.
“These documents could have been used as linkage to his parents who have their name in voter lists prior to 1971 March,” Hussain said.
Despite his repeated requests, Hussain said Falu Miya never went to the tribunal hearing as he was misled by an activist.
But “suspected foreigners” not turning up at the tribunals is hardly uncommon, said Wadud.
“People don’t appear to defend their citizenship or give up midway – and that can be for various reasons,” he said. “In many cases, notices are not issued to them and they remain completely unaware about the proceedings before the tribunal. Some don't appear or give up midway because they fail to pay their lawyer.”
Wadud added: “The enormity of the proceedings – from getting certified copies [of documents], the years it drags on, wrong advice from lawyers – overwhelms people at times.”
In a 2019 report on the tribunals, Amnesty International, too, noted something similar. “While many fail to appear at all in the Foreigners Tribunals, others are unable to appear after the first or second time, limited by financial constraints,” the report said.
As a result, many of the orders are passed in the absence of the accused – according to one analysis of 818 rulings between 2017 and 2019, “96% of the orders were ex-parte”.
Miya was declared a foreigner in 2024. After his arrest last year, Miya moved the high court on November 19. On November 27, the court ruled that he shall not be deported without the order of the court. “It has been over 40 years since we got married,” his wife asked. “How will I survive if he is sent to Bangladesh?”
Jahedul Islam, 51
Included in the NRC, 2019
Case with Gauhati HC’s legal service committee
In June 2004, the Barpeta border police initiated an inquiry against Jahedul Islam, suspected him to be an “illegal migrant” and made a reference to the foreigners’ tribunal. In 2017, a case was registered.
However, like Falu Miya, Islam avoided the foreigners’ tribunal hearing and the tribunal declared him a foreigner in an ex parte order in 2024, without allowing him an opportunity to defend himself.
“My brother did not challenge or contest the case because he is an Indian. Why should he prove his Indian citizenship?” Rashidul Islam, his youngest brother, told Scroll. “He did not care about the consequences.”
Jahedul Islam’s wife, two minor children, and four other siblings live in Dimapur village. According to his family members and lawyer, Islam has land titles in his name. His name features in the jamabandi or record of land titles maintained by the state government. His father Abdul Khalek Miya was included in the 1970 voter list while his grandfather, Taleb Ali, was included in the National Register of Citizens updated in Assam in 1951.
The documents were enough for Jahedul Islam’s name to figure in the 2019 NRC. “My brother has all the Indian documents from voter lists to land documents,” Rashidul Islam said. “They should release him. They should not harass him.”
On October 1, 2024, the Gauhati High Court’s Legal Service Committee appointed an advocate to provide legal assistance to Jahedul Islam. But, it is not clear whether the case has been filed before the Gauhati High Court.
“The advocate does not take my calls,” Rashidul Islam said.
Mukbul Hussain, 65
Name not included in the NRC
Review petition pending in Gauhati HC
Like Falu Miya, the suspicion around the citizenship of Mukbul Hussain was created when he shifted from one village to another.
Born and brought up at Atagaon village in Barpeta district, Hussain moved to Kuthurijhar village after his marriage 35 years ago.
Kuthurijhar, close to the Manas National Park, was part of Barpeta district before the new Baksa district was carved out.
Hussain had argued that his parents, Lal Mia and Sundari Nessa, were enrolled as voters in 1966 in Atagaon village in Sarukhetri assembly constituency.
"But at the tribunal and later the Gauhati High Court, Hussain wasn't able to establish his linkage with his father Lal Mia,” a person, who is familiar with the case status, told Scroll.
The Barpeta tribunal declared him a foreigner in 2018. He challenged the order, but the high court did not give relief to him.
The person added: “A review has been filed at the high court, saying that a minor inconsistency in the oral evidence of his brother can't be relied on to discard someone's citizenship.”
Hussain’s brother told the court that he had moved to Kuthurijhar 40 years ago and not 35 years ago, as stated in the affidavit.
“The state has to establish that he is an illegal migrant,” the person added. “It can't be based on mere suspicion.”
Hussain was arrested and sent to detention on October 31, 2023. His wife Mafida Khatun also spent a month at the detention camp before she was released on bail.
Kitab Ali, 65
Included in NRC, 2019
Case pending in Gauhati HC
In May 2022, Kitab Ali lost his case at a foreigners’ tribunal that found that the documents submitted “were not sufficient and trustworthy to prove” that he is an Indian citizen.
Ali’s family members contested the decision. They pointed out that all their names were included in the National Register of Citizens updated in Assam in 2019. “All my uncles are Indian. How come my father became a foreigner?” asked Gulzar Ali, the 30-year-old daily wager, when Scroll met him last year at his home in Lachanga village.
“We have challenged the tribunal order in the high court and the advocates told me that my father will be released soon,” Ali told Scroll on February 15.
Ibrahim Ali, 75
Included in NRC, 2019
Case pending in Gauhati HC
Three years ago, a foreigners’ tribunal had decided 75-year-old Ibrahim Talukdar was a foreigner.
As proof of his citizenship, Ibrahim Talukdar had submitted voter lists from 1966 and 1970 featuring his father Khalil Talukdar’s name. However, the tribunal rejected the voter lists, arguing they were “unauthenticated”, “uncertified” and “inadmissible”.
According to his family, Ibrahim Talukdar was born in Assam in 1950, which is attested by a village headman certificate, and his name has figured in a voter list from 1985.
In November 2024, he moved the high court. On January 10, the Gauhati High Court released him on bail after it noted that he was in detention for about four months. His citizenship case is ongoing at the high court.
