GUWAHATI: A foreigners’ tribunal in Assam’s Bongaigaon district has summoned a 60-year-old woman to prove her citizenship all over again, just over two years after scrutinising her credentials following a police referral and declaring her a bona fide Indian citizen, reports Rokibuz Zaman.
Bharati Sarkar, a resident of Jamdoha village, is scheduled to appear before the same tribunal that had previously cleared her. Her previous appearance was on March 8, 2019, based on a summons in a case filed by the border wing of Assam police in 2005. On that occasion, the tribunal ruled that there was no evidence to identify Bharati as an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant of the “post-1971 or any other stream”.
This time, Bharati has to defend herself in a second case filed by the police in 2010, branding her a “suspected foreigner”. The police suspect she entered Assam illegally post-March 24, 1971, the cut-off mentioned in the 1985 Assam Accord as the determinant of citizenship for immigrants and their progeny.
Bongaigaon SP Swapnaneel Deka confirmed that there were two cases against Bharati and she had been cleared only in one. Bharati’s son, who runs a small shop, said the family did not have the means to fight a second citizenship case.