On ‘suggestion’ to drop Foreigners Tribunal cases against people from 6 communities, Assam CM Himanta clears the air

This has triggered a firestorm in Assam, with the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) announcing a statewide protest on August 8, accusing the government of “selectively protecting illegal immigrants based on religion”. However, a senior Home and Political Department official, who was among those who attended the meeting, told The Indian Express that the records of the meeting do not amount to directives to the Foreigners Tribunals and that no formal order to withdraw cases against members of these six religions has been issued by the state government.

Asked about this while addressing reporters after a state cabinet meeting late Thursday night, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that there is “no need” for the state cabinet to take any special decisions in this regard since protections are already extended to the specified communities under the CAA.

“The state government has not issued any direction except what is already in the CAA. The CAA itself provides security and protection to the people who entered India prior to 2014. That is the law. No special cabinet decision is required. We have taken two cabinet decisions for the Koch Rajbongshis and the Gorkha people, and the cases have been withdrawn. Beyond that, for people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan who entered before 2014, the CAA itself provides protection. There is no need for the state government to bring any new decision on this.”

On July 17, a meeting was presided over by the Additional Chief Secretary to the Home and Political Department, and attended by eight other senior officials from the Assam Police, the Home Department, and the Health and Family Welfare Department with the stated agenda of “sensitising for the use of e-Sakshya portal, capacity building and ensuring effective implementation of BNS, BNSS and BSA”. The minutes of the meeting mention that issues related to the accommodation of Public Prosecutors as well as Foreigners Tribunals, with reference to the Citizenship Amendment Act, were also included as additional discussion points.

The minutes said that DCs and SSPs of all districts are to conduct a review of “all the Foreigners (Pakistani/ Bangladeshi/ Rohingya, etc.)”

“As per the amendments made to the Citizenship Act, the FTs are not supposed to pursue cases of foreigners belonging to the six specified communities (Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Parsi and Jain communities), who had entered Assam on or prior to  31.12.2014. It was suggested to drop all such cases. In this regard, the District Commissioners and Senior SPs should immediately convene a meeting with their respective FT members and also review the developments periodically and submit the action taken report to this department,” the minutes said.

“However, such foreigners should be encouraged and supported to apply for Indian citizenship as per provisions of the Citizenship Amendment Act,” it goes on to say.

Assam shares a long border with Bangladesh, and the question of “illegal immigration” from the neighbouring country has long been a contentious issue. The state has different processes for declaring people who entered the state after March 24, 1971 — the cut-off date for citizenship as determined by the Assam Accord — as “foreigners” and “illegal immigrants”. Among these are trials by Foreigners Tribunals to determine whether suspected “illegal immigrants” referred to them by the border police are Indian nationals or foreigners.

Last July, the Home and Political Department had directed the border police not to directly refer cases of newly detected “foreigners” from these six categories, who entered Assam before December 31, 2014,  to FTs and instead advise them to apply for citizenship under the CAA. This did not have a bearing on the over 90,000 cases pending with the FTs and cases where people have been declared foreigners.

The official who was present at the meeting claimed that the July meeting does not translate to an order for the withdrawal of cases against people from the six specific communities.

“If we are to take a decision on dropping cases, we will have to issue formal and clear-cut orders from Dispur. A discussion in a meeting on a matter like this is not actionable. In the past, the state government had taken decisions to withdraw all cases filed against people from the Gorkha and Koch Rajbongshi communities. In both these cases, clear-cut written orders were issued from the Home and Political Department in 2021 and in April this year, respectively. In this case, there has not been such an order. The only directions we formally issued in this matter are from last year, when we instructed the border police not to directly refer pre-2014 cases from the six specified communities to FTs,” said the official.