Dulubi Bibi alias Dulabjan Bibi/Dolabjan Bibi, Udharband, Cachar District, 2018
Detention Timeline Case Study #11 [written in Bangla by Kamal Chakraborty, translated into English by Riya]
Forty-five-year-old Dulubi Bibi alias Dulabjan Bibi, a resident of Udharband, Cachar, was released on bail on April 27, 2020, after being held in the dungeon of Silchar Detention Camp for two years and thirteen days.
Dulubi Bibi received a notice from the Foreigners' Tribunal on November 2, 2015. She didn't want to worry her family and set out to deal with this storm on her own, with her lawyer, keeping her family members in the dark. But she failed to keep the situation away from them for long. In April 2018, her address became the Silchar Detention Camp.
I became acquainted with Sahab-Uddin, Dulubi Bibi's husband while working on the cases of Kamrul ‘Islam’ and Minara Begum-Shahanara Begum of Udharband. I became acquainted with her family and when we spoke to Khaled (Dulubi’s brother), he told us that, his sister never spoke about this matter with the family and used to work on her case with her lawyer (Dailen Sinha) alone. When she received the notice from the Foreigners' Tribunals, she was living with her then-husband, Waqtar-Uddin, in Khashpur, Udharband, but due to some mutual issues, they got divorced. Dulubi later got married to Sahab-Uddin and lived in the Dumurghat village. All the family members have their names in the NRC, including her father, but she is the only one marked as a foreigner.
On June 5, 2015, Dulubi's name was on the voters' list as Dolabjan Begum, daughter of Sirai-Uddin Laskar. But, the name on the Voter ID Card was Dulabjan Begum, and the father's name was Sirai-Uddin Laskar. Sirai-Uddin got married to Nurulnesa of Pangram in 1967. After getting married, Sirai-Uddin travelled to different parts of India for work—he worked as a day labourer—he returned to Udharband in 1982. Sirai-Uddin had his name on voters' lists of 1965 and 1985, but Sirai-Uddin doesn't have any documented records of where he was or what he has been doing the rest of the years. But between these two lists, one list had the name "Sirai-Uddin", and the other list had the name "Sirai-Miya".
Since Dulubi Bibi's father's name was in the 1965 voters' list, if we see it from that point of view, according to the documents, Dulubi Bibi is an Indian Citizen. But the problem was in the "name" itself. In the case of Dulubi Bibi, one place has the name Dulabjan Begum, and another list has the name Dolabjan Begum, similar to the case of her father. Because of these inconsistencies in spellings, Dulubi submitted an affidavit to the Foreigners' Tribunal stating the issue with the names and correcting it.
However, this was done in 2016, when Dulubi's case was already ongoing at the Foreigners' Tribunal. If there are errors in your name in the voters' list, they must be corrected as soon as possible, which is not known to most people. Only a victim like Dulubi can truly understand the horror, urgency and importance of it. Since she never knew that this issue can turn and take such a form, she is now marked as a foreigner in her own country even though the rest of her family members are considered to be Indian citizens.
Considering the inconsistencies in her name, her father’s name and lack of documents of her father’s whereabouts for a few years, meant that she now needs to prove herself as a citizen of India or else spend her time in detention camps.
It is also vital for us to know and understand that not all lawyers are well-versed in cases of citizenship or skilled enough to take up cases going on the Foreigners' Tribunal. When such lawyers take up such cases, the results are terrible—often dangerous. There are some well-known lawyers of Silchar who do not want to fight the various Doubtful Voters' cases—and then again, there are lawyers who only specifically take up such Foreigners' Tribunal cases in their hands, and pocket the money from clients, only to abandon the clients in the horrors of NRC. In Dulubi’s case, the case should have been handled by an expert lawyer, who deals with cases in the Foreigners' Tribunals, who has experience with clients declared as D-Voters. Dulubi did not have a lawyer who could handle her case. In my opinion, this was why Dulubi Bibi, alias Dulabjan has to live her days with the badge of being a foreigner despite being a citizen of India.
Since Dulubi’s release from Detention Camp on bail, S. Islam, a lawyer of the High Court, is now handling the case. When I asked about the case on the phone some time back, he said, "The issue is a bit complicated. It would be good if Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Chowdhury (a prominent lawyer from Guwahati High Court) looked into it." Dulubi is out of prison right now but is constantly in fear if she would be sent back again.
Translator’s Note: Currently, Dulubi needs to pay a starting fee of thirty thousand to her lawyers. Which she is unable to gather, currently she is struggling with day-to-day expenses, paying the legal fees and fighting her case is something not affordable to her, she has informed the same to her lawyers. Her fate hangs in uncertainty.
[This is the Eleventh Case Study from the book আসামে নাগরিকত্ব হরণের দহনলিপি // Transliteration: Assam-e Nagorikottwo Horoner Dohonlipi by Kamal Chakraborty. The book was first published in February 2021 by Kotha Bikolpo Pariwar, Silchar, Assam. To know more about the book and this translation project or contact the translator or the author, click here. If you want to order this original book in Bangla, you can get it from the People's Book Society, College Street in Kolkata. Contact Number: 033-22199256; instead, you may also contact the author or the translator. ]