In April, Mumtaz Begum’s husband got a call from her lawyer.
She had good news. The Gauhati High Court had referred the case of the 44-year-old Bengal-origin Muslim woman back to the foreigners tribunal in Assam’s Nagaon district.
Foreigners tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies unique to Assam that decide on matters of nationality on the basis of documentary evidence.
The Nagaon tribunal had declared Begum a foreigner in 2019, saying she could not prove that she was her father’s daughter.
But the High Court set aside the tribunal order and asked it for a fresh decision, as it had failed to consider all the evidence that Begum had submitted.
On May 30, Begum woman appeared before the tribunal and her lawyer submitted her petition to the court.
Within minutes, however, the tribunal member called the police and ordered Begum’s arrest, without passing any order, her lawyer alleged. She was taken to the Juria police station, and later to the office of the Nagaon superintendent of police and from there to the Matia detention centre in Goalpara district.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.