Brother-Sister Duo Declared Indians After 17 Years

GUWAHATI, (IANS) – Siblings Bimal Das and Suma Das, natives of Assam’s Karimganj district, were declared Indian citizens after 17 years since a Foreigners Tribunal termed them immigrants who illegally entered India.

Their 65-year-old father, Nilmani Das, experienced the same issues and was only identified as Indian in 2021.

The citizenship of all three members of the family was questioned in 2006 after the border police labeled them as “doubtful citizens” in their monthly report.

They were ruled to be illegal migrants from Bangladesh in 2011. But they were never taken into custody.

Their names continued to show in voter lists for a few more years, but in 2019, they were removed, and upon further investigation, they discovered that they had been classified as foreign nationals.

Suma Das said, “We are poor people; we didn’t know we had been called illegal migrants. Our ancestors were Indians, and we are native to this land. We were denied the opportunity to present our case. But in the end, justice was served, and maybe this marks the end of our fight for citizenship.”