Arrested Rohingya in final draft of NRC

SWAPNANEEL BHATTACHARJEE, TT, 22 Jul 2019, Silchar: A Rohingya from Myanmar, who was arrested on Friday from Bhagad-ahar in Assam's Cachar district, figured in the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), raising questions over the verification process.

The development came to light on a day the Centre and the state government appealed to the Supreme Court to push back the July 31 deadline to publish the final NRC in order to complete re-verification of 20 per cent applicants from border areas. The apex court's next hearing is on Tuesday.

Alam Hussain Mazumder, 45, hails from a village under Buthidaung police station in Myanmar's Rakhine state. Sources said Mazumdar had been arrested during an operation conducted on the basis of a tip-off by police and Assam Rifles on Friday evening at Bhagadahar Part-IV in Cachar district, around 10km from here. Documents like PAN card, voter card, bank passbooks, land documents and other documents were seized.

Mazumder was produced in a court in Silchar on Saturday and remanded in police custody for seven days. Mazumder told the police that he had entered India through the Indo-Bangladesh border in Karimganj 12 years ago. He got married around seven years ago and was staying with his wife and two children at his father-in-law's house. The documents seized from him were arranged by his wife's family, he said.

Ajijur Rahman Laskar, Mazumder's father-in-law, is absconding, sources said.

During interrogation, Mazumder said his father's name is Abdul Sufan, who lives in Myanmar. In the seized documents, his father's name was Hasan Raja Mazumder and his mother's name Nekjanbibi Mazumder.

From Myanmar, he had gone to Bangladesh. He stayed in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia before coming to India, Mazumder told the police.