Hasan Ali spends days worrying about his father, Taher Ali.
How is the 58-year-old fending for himself in a foreign country? What might be doing in the bitter January cold? What dangers might he be facing?
In the last eight months, Taher Ali, a peasant from Assam’s Nagaon district has been forced out of India and into the no man’s land abutting Bangladesh not once – but three times.
Twice, he was sent back by Bangladesh border officials, Hasan Ali, a 31-year-old vegetable vendor, told Scroll.
Taher Ali is a “declared foreigner”, someone who has failed to prove that he is an Indian citizen before the state’s foreigners tribunals even though he has lived his entire life in Assam.
The tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies that have stripped thousands of Assam’s residents of their citizenship, many times through ex-parte orders that were passed without hearing the accused – as was the case with Taher Ali.
Those who lose their cases at the foreigners tribunals have the right to challenge their orders in the higher courts. In some instances, they have been sent to the state’s detention or holding centres. But, until May last year, they were rarely deported to Bangladesh, as a tribunal order is not proof that they are citizens of another country.
However, since May, the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Assam has repeatedly bypassed the legal process of deportation by “pushing back” declared foreigners across the border – in the dead of the night, and at gun point. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has invoked a 1950 law to justify the forced deportations.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.