Rangia (Assam): Three separate FIRs have been lodged against a retired policeman, who had verified the documents and recorded the statement of Mohammad Sanaullah, a former Army officer, declared a “foreigner” and lodged in a detention centre in Assam, officials said on Monday.
The complaints were filed against retired sub-inspector Chandramal Das of the Assam Border Police at the Boko police station by three persons, whose names appeared as witnesses in Sanaullah’s statement, they said.
Mohammad Kuran Ali, Suwahan Ali and Ajmal Ali alleged in the FIRs that Das, who was investigating Sanaullah’s case, did not call them for giving any statement or sign on any document as witnesses, Officer in-charge of the Boko police station Jogen Barman told PTI.
The three also claimed that they came to know that they were made witnesses to Sanaullah’s statement from the social media, he said.
The police had registered three cases against Das under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Barman said.
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Sanaullah, who had won a president’s medal, was declared a “foreigner” by the Foreigners Tribunal, Kamrup, following a case registered in 2008 after his name was listed as a “D” (doubtful) voter.
After the verdict of the tribunal, Sanaullah, a resident of Kolohikash village in Kamrup district, was lodged in a detention camp in Goalpara.
The three persons, in their complaints, also said Sanaullah was a genuine Indian citizen and was being “harassed by the Assam Border Police, which has conspired to declare him a doubtful voter”.
Sanaullah’s lawyer Aman Wadud said when the Foreigners Tribunal heard the case, the retired Army personnel was deployed in Manipur and had not given any statement in court.
The Kargil war veteran’s family members have decided to file a case in the Gauhati High Court against the Assam Border Police and Das for allegedly conspiring to declare Sanaullah a “foreigner”.
An honest man and his entire family’s life of 50 years can be shattered by one dirty, scheming man’s malicious acts! This entire exercise of NCR is a cruel act, especially when it is being conducted 50 YEARS AFTER the cutoff date of 1970.
A few months ago I had written two comments right here on THE PRINT. I am reproducing them here, I hope they will be carried:
2.
“Locals versus Outsiders is a hot debate everywhere. BREXIT happened because of this; Donald Trump won the U.S. elections because of this. In any situation the “locals” are obviously in a majority, so anyone who whips up their passion against the foreigners who are seen to be encroaching upon their jobs and resources, always gets an applause from the majority.
“But any responsible leadership before it goes full throttle against the “outsiders” must clearly answer this question:
“WHAT WILL BE DONE WITH THE “FOREIGNERS” ONCE THEY ARE CLEARLY IDENTIFIED THUS???
“There may be hundreds of thousands of them. At present, they are occupied in some way and are earning their livelihood. They are self sufficient and not a burden on the state. Will they be uprooted from their occupations so that the “locals” can get those jobs? Will the locals be WILLING to take up those jobs? Will the uprooted foreigners be accommodated in government relief camps? Who will foot the bill for lakhs and lakhs of people in those camps and for an indefinite period of time? Will Bangladesh agree to take back those lakhs and lakhs of foreigners? If not, then will India fight a war with Bangladesh on this issue?
“(At one point in Maharashtra, lots of outsiders left the state due to persecution by a few political parties. The locals showed no interest in the jobs that were now available to them — that of menial labor in construction industry, vegetable selling, etc. As a result, the wages of manual labor shot up to Rs.800 a day which the builders couldn’t afford! In the end, the outsiders were “allowed” to return to their old jobs.)
“NRC looks attractive to BJP politicians and Modi government for political gains that might accrue to them in the short run. But they must realize that such gains will very soon go against them, because the resulting situation will be totally uncontrollable, fraught with danger of rampant violence not just in Assam but all over the country.”
1.
“This whole idea of NRC in a country like India encompassing that part of its past when there were no computers and all data was ONLY paper-confined, IS HIGHLY UNFAIR. I went to school in towns, big or small — but not remote villages — and I remember how difficult it was to make copies of certificates (on a typewriter; there were no Xerox machines then), and then find a “Gazetted Officer” to attest them. Originals got moth-eaten. The art or science of LAMINATION had not arrived yet.
“Situation could have been only worse in villages, and more so in remote villages. In fact there was no “document culture” in our country then — such was the blissful simplicity or naivety of our people of those times. My father was in a transferrable job, and I do not remember if my parents had any voting cards, or frankly, if they ever went for voting, or if their names were there on any voting lists. By today’s yardsticks they just did not exist those many years ago!
“If any NRC kind of exercise is conducted 50 years FROM NOW, the situation will be entirety different. There will have been computers and computer records, and each person’s own pen drive or portable hard disk with all his or her data on it, LAMINATED paper certificates etc. etc.
“In our country of remote villages, scarce awareness of, and lack of facility for creating and copying documents 50 YEARS AGO, the VERY IDEA of NRC is, I would even say, CRUEL. I do not know what the final result of this exercise will be. I will personally be very happy if it ends in a massive confusion, with the powers that be realizing that it was a futile effort to begin with. After all, if the question comes up of uprooting entire families who have called their home their home for 50 years and no one has questioned them for doing so until now, then shouldn’t the benefit of the doubt be applied to them? That, yes, that indeed is their home? If the phrase THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT cannot be applied to them, then in what situations will this phrase ever be justified to be applied, and indeed the question will arise as to why this phrase has even survived in the civilized society for so long?”