Assam woman, who was detained, declared foreigner, gets Indian citizenship under CAA

Under Indian law, anyone entering the country illegally after the March 25, 1971 cut-off is considered an illegal migrant in Assam

A 59-year-old woman from Assam’s Cachar district, who spent two years in detention after being declared a foreigner, has now been granted Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The woman was declared an illegal migrant by a Foreigners’ Tribunal (FT) in February 2019. (Image sourced from Paytm wesbite)

The woman, identified as Dipali Das, is a resident of the Hawaithang area under the Dholai assembly constituency in Cachar district. She was declared an illegal migrant by a Foreigners’ Tribunal (FT) in February 2019.

Following the tribunal’s order, police detained her and sent her to the Silchar detention centre on May 10 the same year, said her lawyer Dharmananda Deb. She remained there for nearly two years before being released on bail on May 17, 2021, following a Supreme Court order.

According to Deb, Dipali was originally a resident of Dippur village under Dhirai police station in Bangladesh’s Sylhet district. She married Abhimanyu Das of Parai village in Habiganj district in 1987.

A year later, in 1988, the couple entered India and moved to Assam’s Cachar district, where they settled and have been living since then.

Her citizenship came under scrutiny in 2013 when a police inquiry was initiated against her. Deb said that a police officer, Ajmal Hussain Laskar, was handling the case and submitted a chargesheet on July 2, 2013 stating that Dipali was a resident of Baniachong in Bangladesh and had entered India illegally after March 1971.

Under Indian law, anyone entering the country illegally after the March 25, 1971 cut-off is considered an illegal migrant in Assam.

Deb said that the same chargesheet later proved crucial in Dipali’s application for Indian citizenship under the CAA.

“In order to apply for citizenship under the CAA, the applicant has to provide documentary evidence showing that he or she migrated from Bangladesh, Pakistan or Afghanistan,” Deb said.

“In most cases, applicants fail to produce such documents. But in Dipali’s case, the chargesheet submitted by the police officer in 2013 clearly mentioned that she was from Bangladesh. The authorities accepted this document as valid proof,” he added.

While declaring her an illegal migrant on February 5, 2019, the member of Foreigners’ Tribunal-6 in Silchar stated in the order that Dipali had no right to live in India and that all her rights as an Indian citizen, including the right to vote, should be scrapped immediately.

Deb, who is himself a former FT member, said that Foreigners’ Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies and their members technically give an “opinion” rather than a judicial judgement.

“The language used in tribunal orders usually follows certain norms. But in this case, the member went beyond those conventions and used some expressions that we generally do not see in other tribunal orders,” he said.

After her release on bail in 2021, Dipali wanted to apply for citizenship under the CAA. Although the Act was passed in 2019, the rules required for its implementation were notified only in 2024.

Once the rules were framed, Dipali approached Deb for legal assistance and the process of applying for citizenship began.

According to social activist Kamal Chakraborty, Dipali Das’s first hearing took place on February 24 last year at the office of the Superintendent of Post Offices in Silchar, which has been designated as the authority to process such applications.

Two more hearings were held subsequently, after which all her documents were submitted online to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

On May 12 last year, officials from the intelligence department, sent by the MHA, visited Dipali Das’s house in Hawaithang to conduct a field verification.

After completing the verification process, the officials submitted their report to the government.

“Dipali was called again to the office of the Superintendent of Post Offices in Silchar for a final appearance on May 25 last year, and today (March 6) she received her Indian citizenship certificate,” Chakraborty told HT on Friday.

According to Chakraborty, Dipali is the first declared foreigner in Assam who had once been lodged in a detention centre and later released on bail to receive Indian citizenship under the CAA.

For Dipali Das and her family, the citizenship certificate marks the end of a long and difficult legal struggle.

“Today, Dipali Das and her children have finally been freed from a tremendous burden that had hung over their lives for years,” Chakraborty said.

Her son Aditya and daughters Arpita, Nivedita and Joyshree, along with the rest of the family, can now rely on their mother’s citizenship certificate if their own citizenship is ever questioned in the future, since all the children were born in India, he added.

The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, triggered widespread protests across the country, particularly in Assam.

The legislation allows Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain and Parsi migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who entered India between March 25, 1971 and December 31, 2014 to apply for Indian citizenship.