Declared foreigner in Cachar granted Indian citizenship under CAA

Guwahati, March 7: A 59-year-old woman from Assam’s Cachar district once declared a foreigner and detained for nearly two years has been granted Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), her lawyer confirmed on Friday.

Depali Das, a resident of Hawaithang under the Dholai Assembly constituency, became the first declared foreigner in Assam who had earlier been lodged in a detention centre and later received Indian citizenship under the CAA.

Das 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, 2019.

She remained there for almost two years before being released on bail on May 17, 2021, after a Supreme Court directive allowed the release of certain detainees who had spent prolonged periods in detention.

According to her lawyer Dharmananda Deb, Das was originally from Dippur village under Dhirai police station in Bangladesh’s Sylhet district. She married Abhimanyu Das of Parai village under Baniachong police station in Habiganj district in 1987.

The couple entered India in 1988 and settled in Cachar district, where they have been residing since then.

Her citizenship status first came under scrutiny in 2013 when the police initiated an inquiry against her. A chargesheet filed on July 2, 2013, stated that Das was a resident of Baniachong in Bangladesh and had entered India illegally after March 1971.

Interestingly, the same chargesheet later played a crucial role in her application under the CAA.

“The chargesheet later proved crucial in her application for Indian citizenship under the CAA because applicants must produce documentary proof of migration from Bangladesh, Pakistan, or Afghanistan,” Deb said.

“In many cases, applicants fail to produce such documents. But in Depali’s case, the chargesheet filed by the police clearly stated that she was from Bangladesh. The authorities accepted it as valid proof,” he added.

After being released on bail in 2021, Das expressed her intention to apply for Indian citizenship under the CAA once the rules of the Act were notified in 2024. She approached Deb for legal assistance to begin the application process.

Her first hearing was held on February 24 last year at the office of the Superintendent of Post Offices in Silchar, which has been designated as one of the authorities to process CAA citizenship applications.

Two more hearings followed, after which her documents were uploaded online to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Social activist Kamal Chakraborty said that after field verification by officials from the Home Ministry, Das was called for a final appearance at the Silchar office on May 25 last year.

Finally, on March 6, she received her official Indian citizenship certificate.

The development also holds significance for her family. Das has four children—one son and three daughters—who were all born in India. According to Chakraborty, their mother’s citizenship certificate could serve as supporting documentation if their own citizenship status is ever questioned in the future.

The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, provides a pathway to Indian citizenship for persecuted minorities including Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who entered India between March 25, 1971, and December 31, 2014.

However, the law triggered widespread protests across the country, particularly in Assam, where concerns were raised about its potential impact on the state’s demographic balance and the provisions of the Assam Accord.

Before Das, four Bangladeshi nationals residing in Assam had already been granted Indian citizenship under the provisions of the CAA.

PTI