The Assam government has directed the border wing of the state police not to forward to foreigners’ tribunals the cases of people who have entered Assam and are eligible for grant of Indian citizenship under the terms of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
As per provisions of CAA 2019, which was implemented in March this year, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jains and Parsis from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who entered India on or before December 31, 2014, are eligible to be granted Indian citizenship.
“In view of the above provision of law, the border police may not forward cases of persons belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, Jain and Christian community who entered India prior to December 31, 2014, directly to foreigners’ tribunals,” stated a letter issued on July 5 (which HT has seen) by the home and political department of state government to the border police.
The letter stated that such people should be advised to apply for Indian citizenship and their applications will be decided by the Union government based on the facts and circumstances of each case. The home department asked the border police to maintain a separate record of such people.
“However, this differential treatment will not be available to the persons who entered Assam from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan after December 31, 2014, irrespective of their religion. Once detected, they should be straight away forwarded to the jurisdictional foreigners’ tribunal for further action,” the letter issued by Partha Pratim Majumdar, secretary, (home and political) to special DGP (Border), Harmeet Singh, read.
{{/usCountry}}“However, this differential treatment will not be available to the persons who entered Assam from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan after December 31, 2014, irrespective of their religion. Once detected, they should be straight away forwarded to the jurisdictional foreigners’ tribunal for further action,” the letter issued by Partha Pratim Majumdar, secretary, (home and political) to special DGP (Border), Harmeet Singh, read.
{{/usCountry}}Foreigners’ tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies exclusive to Assam which adjudicate whether a person whose name is missing from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for the state or are suspected to be illegal immigrants are Indians or not. There are 100 such tribunals in the state at present.
The border wing of Assam Police is entrusted with the task of detecting and deporting illegal immigrants who entered the state . They also forward cases of people suspected to be illegal immigrants to the foreigners’ tribunals that adjudicate whether a person is an Indian or not based on documents.
Prior to implementation of CAA, any person, irrespective of their religious affiliation, who entered Assam after March 24, 1971, was deemed an illegal immigrant. Now that deadline has extended to December 31, 2014, for people from the six specified communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, excluded by the CAA.
In NRC, which was published in August 2019, people who could prove with documents that they or their ancestors were residents of Assam prior to the March 1971 deadline, were included in the list as Indians. Over 1.9 million people who failed to prove this were excluded from the list.
Assam witnessed violent protests in December 2019 against CAA resulting in five deaths due to police firing. While protests in other parts of India against CAA were about exclusion of Muslims from its purview, in Assam opposition was against allowing non-Muslim illegal immigrants to become citizens.
The provisions of CAA were seen by many in the state as going against the tenets of the Assam Accord of 1985 that assured an end to entry of illegal immigrants irrespective of their religious affiliations. Several groups and indigenous associations felt if CAA is implemented, it could lead to an influx of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and threaten language, culture and land holdings of local populations.
In an order issued last week, the Supreme Court had held that the government can’t pick a person at random and demand that they prove their citizenship. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said that “in the absence of the basic/primary material, it cannot be left to the untrammeled or arbitrary discretion of the authorities to initiate proceedings” that have life-altering and serious consequences for a person.