GUWAHATI: A Foreigners' Tribunal (FT) in lower
Assam's Bongaigaon district has summoned a 60-year-old woman to prove her citizenship all over again within a little over two years.
Bharati Sarkar, a resident of No 2 Jamdoha village near the Bijni town of the district was declared an Indian citizen by the same tribunal on March 8, 2019 on referral from the border wing of the Assam Police suspecting her to be an illegal foreigner in 2005.
Even as the woman was contesting the case in the FT, the police registered a second case as a suspected foreigner in 2010 based on which she has been summoned to appear before the tribunal again on November 16.
The Bongaigaon FT in 2019 had ruled that Bharati Sarkar "appears as not being a foreigner of the stream post-1971 or any other stream".
The same FT issued a notice to her again on September 30 after the police suspected that she had entered Assam illegally post 1971 March 24, the cut off date in Assam to determine foreigners in Assam according to the Assam Accord.
Bongaigaon SP Swapnaneel Deka told TOI that there "were two cases against Bharati Sarkar and she was declared Indian in one case. Now the case will be disposed of once she files a petition stating that she was declared an Indian and if a copy of the earlier order is attached to the reply to this notice."
Biswajit Sarkar
, the son of the woman, who runs a small shop, told TOI, "We received the notice from the police five days ago. Why have they sent the notice to appear before the court despite the fact that she was declared an Indian. This is harassment. We don't have money to go to court again. Our house was destroyed two years ago in river erosion and now we are taking refuge in a relative's house."
Sarkar claimed all his family members were born here and this notice to prove his mother's citizenship is an "insult to her and his family".
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