BSF officer, wife declared ‘foreigners’ in Assam when he was on duty in Punjab

A Border Security Force (BSF) assistant sub-inspector and his wife were declared non-Indians by a foreigners’ tribunal (FT) in Assam’s Jorhat district.

This comes almost two months after a former army soldier, Mohammed Sanaullah, was declared a foreigner and sent to a detention camp amid work on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) list in Assam.

Assistant Sub-Inspector Muzibur Rahman and his wife was declared "foreigners" in an ex-parte order passed in December last year but Rahman came to know about it when he went to Assam last month. The tribunal at Jorhat has ordered the Assam police to arrest both of them.

The development comes at a time when NRC authorities are struggling to meet an August 31 deadline set by the Supreme Court.

Rahman, a resident of Udaypur-Mikipatty in Assam's Golaghat district, is currently posted in Punjab as part of the 144 battalion.

At present, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is being updated in Assam to identify Indians residing in the state and weed out illegal immigrants. Names of persons declared foreigners by FTs or termed D-voters will not be included in the final NRC list.

Meanwhile, Assam has 100 foreigners tribunals to identify illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh as part of the NRC exercise, and 200 new ones are expected to come up soon.

The Supreme Court had earlier extended the NRC deadline by a month to ensure that the final list is free of errors.

In June, the Gauhati High Court granted bail to retired soldier Mohammed Sanaullah after he was declared a foreigner by a Guwahati tribunal and sent to a detention camp in western Assam's Goalpara. The 52-year-old is still fighting the case in court.

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