Gita Namasudra, Patharkandi, Karimganj District, 2015
Detention Timeline Case Study #13 [written in Bangla by Kamal Chakraborty, translated into English by Riya]
Gita Namasudra used to live in Singari Village, Patharkandi, Karimganj District of Assam. On January 2, 2015, she received the notice from Karimganj Foreigners’ Tribunal No. 2. Many people do not know what to do when they receive this so-called ‘notice’. The fact is that the burden of the stomach is more enormous for most poor people than some small paper that can dictate their identity.
Gita Namasudra did not know that she had to go and get a lawyer and fight her case despite having all her documents. So as a result, Gita Namasudra, through a unilateral verdict, was declared a foreigner and sent to the Silchar Detention Camp on August 2, 2015.
When Kamalaksh Dey Purakayastha, MLA of Karimganj, visited Silchar Detention Camp, he met Gita Namasudra. Surprised to see a sixty-five-year-old woman in there, he collected her family’s contact details and addresses. Then, he went straight to her village to meet them. After that, UCDF workers started working day in and out on how to get her out of the detention centre. Eventually, a few advocates, including Reena Chakraborty, came forward. However, it was not easy for poor people to find two guarantors and twenty thousand rupees for bail. We still don’t know the answer as to why was Gita Namasudra declared to be a foreigner despite her father’s name being present in the 1966 legacy data of Assam.
Speaking from my actual experience, it seems that the low-ranking officers and staff of election offices and the Border Police have only one job, that is, to catch as many poor people as they can and push them in detention centres. You need not know who among those people are Indians or Bangladeshis. Do marginalised people even have the right to live? No one comes forward to help marginalised people either.
Gita Namasudra’s case was the first time an MLA from Barak Valley attempted to release someone from the detention camp on bail. They worked together and made sure she was released. She was the first person who was put in detention camps to be released from Silchar Detention Camp.
Despite being from the congress, the name of this Barak Valley MLA is so prevalent in people’s homes; people have loved and blessed so much of his work. I am also thankful to him for making sure that Gita Namasudra gets out of the detention camp. I am grateful to all my friends from Karimganj who put in the effort to get her released. If all the political leaders could forget their personal-political interests and come forward for the greater good, spring would be here prematurely, even during the tough times. Then, the marginalised people in the camps would be able to be under the free sky.