Why she is angry

TT, 2 August 2018: Phulbaso Devi of Fakirganj in lower Assam’s Dhubri district is fuming, her son Manoj Kumar Pandey told The Telegraph on Thursday morning, after a perception set in that the over 40 lakh people excluded from the draft National Register of Citizens have been referred to as “ghuspetiye” (infiltrators)  from Bangladesh. BJP chief Amit Shah had asked in the Rajya Sabha how many among the 40 lakh were “Bangladeshi ghuspetiye”.

Phulbaso Devi, 70, wife of the late Jagdew Pandey, a former Assam police constable, has not been included in the draft.  “How can my mother be a ghuspetiya? Our ancestors are from undivided Bihar, not from Bangladesh. It is insulting that all those who missed the draft NRC are being called ghuspetiye. My mother was very angry when she heard Amit Shah say on television that those who missed the NRC are ghuspetiya,” Manoj said. The names of all other 18 members of Devi’s family are in the draft but not hers.

“A large number of people who missed the NRC draft have origins in other states of the country like Bihar, Bengal and 

Jharkhand. So if they call us all infiltrators, it is insulting and insensitive towards them,” Manoj said.

Picture courtesy: Pradip Kumar Pandey,  Reporting by Sumir Karmakar