Guwahati, Mar 5: Highlighting the plight of the ‘D’ (Doubtful) voters, the opposition on Wednesday demanded closure of Assam’s sole detention centre, now called a transit camp, and tabling of the NRC report in the Assembly.
During a discussion on the contentious issue, AIUDF MLA Aminul Islam claimed that lakhs of people were declared ‘D’ voters without officials visiting their homes and proper verification.
“There are thousands of cases when only one person in a family is declared ‘D’ voter but his siblings and parents are still Indian citizens. This has ruined so many families and shattered the dreams of thousands of youths,” he added.
Islam demanded formation of an all-party team by the Speaker to study the conditions of the ‘D’ voters and living in the detention centre.
“Even the Foreigners Tribunals have declared verdicts despite respondents submitting enough proof. These courts are very biased and justice is not done there,” Islam said.
CPI (M) member Manoranjan Talukdar said the BJP had promised to close down the detention centre before coming to power, but it has not done so and continues the facility in Goalpara district of Assam.
“All Indians languishing at the centre should be immediately released and the foreigners should be deported. The detention centre should be demolished. Many decisions are taken ex-parte there and the Supreme Court has also questioned this,” he added.
Independent MLA Akhil Gogoi drew the attention of the House that not only Hindus and Muslims were declared as ‘D’ voters, but people from the Nepali, Koch-Rajbongshi, Hajong, Garo and Rabha communities were also put under the category.
“This entire problem would have been sorted out if the National Register of Citizens (NRC) were completed. The NRC found who was Indian and who was not. But it is just lying. If the NRC is wrong, please rectify it.
The final NRC was released on August 31, 2019 by excluding 19,06,657 people. However, it has not been notified by the Registrar General of India yet, leaving the document without any official validity.
“I request the government to table the NRC in the Assembly. Then we can recommend it to the Centre and settle this foreigner issue permanently,” he added.
Stating that the detention centre is against human rights, Gogoi also claimed that very few foreigners have been deported after Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma came to power compared to his predecessor Sarbananda Sonowal, while it was the highest during Congress CM Tarun Gogoi’s tenure.
“The biggest hurdle in deporting the foreigners is the absence of an extradition treaty with Bangladesh. So, I feel an Assembly resolution should be adopted requesting the Centre to sign a treaty with the neighbouring nation,” he added.
Citing examples, Congress legislator Nurul Huda said thousands of Indian citizens have been suffering in the detention centre for years.
“People are dying inside the centre, but their bodies are not sent to Bangladesh. These are handed over to the relatives in Assam for the last rites. If they were Bangladeshis, why don’t you send them to that country?” he questioned the government.
In a written reply on Monday, the CM said there are 1,18,134 ‘D’ voters at present in Assam as informed by the Election Department.
He also said that there are 258 inmates at the transit camp as on February 24.
Supporting the existence of the detention centre, BJP MLA Dipayan Chakraborty urged the government to release all the Hindu ‘D’ voters from the facility.
AIUDF MLA Ashraful Hussain said ‘D’ voters are deprived of all basic facilities and identity documents like Aadhaar Card, PAN Card and Voter ID Card.
“It is a political problem and cannot be solved by the legal system. A political solution has to be found for a permanent solution. This entire system was created to economically weaken a community,” he added.
Slamming the Foreigners Tribunals (FTs), Hussain said that if ‘D’ voter cases are registered against 126 MLAs of the Assam Assembly, 50 per cent of them will not clear the FT judgement.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said that no one has been kept at the transit camp without the orders of the FTs.
“We keep the detainees after they are declared foreigners. We keep them till deportation takes place. Also, the ‘D’ voter concept was introduced not by the government or police. It was done by the Election Commission and they issued the guidelines for terming someone as a ‘D’ voter,” he added.
The concept of ‘D’ voters was introduced in Assam in 1997 by the EC. It prepared a list including those who could not provide evidence in favour of their Indian nationality. D voters do not exist anywhere else in India.
The issue of D-voters is one of the most contentious topics in Assam’s political and social sphere. Several elections have been fought and won over this single issue of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, who are initially marked as D-voters if their names are found in the electoral rolls.
Deletion or regularisation of a D-voter is done as per orders of the Foreigners Tribunals and the subsequent judgements by higher courts. (PTI)
