Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court has issued notice to the Assam government directing it to provide details on the whereabouts of two brothers, who were declared foreigners in 2017 but were detained on May 25 by the state police.
A division bench of Justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Malasri Nandi on Thursday directed the state government to provide details on the whereabouts of Abu Bakkar Siddik and his brother Akbar Ali, who were detained by the Nagarbera police officials in Kamrup district on May 25.
The court was hearing a writ petition filed by the duo’s nephew Torap Ali, who claimed that his family apprehends both his uncles “may be in danger of being illegally pushed into Bangladesh”.
The petitioner claimed that the authorities have refused to give details of the whereabouts of the two brothers since May 25, the day they were called to the police station.
“The petitioner is now apprehensive that his uncles will be pushed back to Bangladesh. So he appealed for the court’s directive that no coercive action be taken till he has had the opportunity to challenge the opinion on December 12, 2017, pronouncing them as foreigners,” one of the lawyers of the petitioner, Aman Wadud, said.
During the hearing, the state counsel J Payeng said that Siddik and Ali have been detained and are now in the custody of the Assam Border police.
In 2017, the brothers were sent to the detention camp in Goalpara after they were declared foreigners by the Foreigners Tribunal as they failed to provide documents to prove that they or their forefathers had come to the country before March 24, 1971, the cut-off decided by the 1985 Assam Accord.
They were released on bail in April 2020 following the Supreme Court’s directive that those who are in detention for over two years may be released on bail.
The petitioner claimed that the two men did not get an opportunity to take recourse to all legal remedies available to them under the law and to ”push back before such determination is conclusive amounts to arbitrary deprivation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution”
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The court has posted the next date of hearing on June 4.
Foreigners Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies, particularly in Assam, established to determine if a person residing in India is a “foreigner” as defined by the Foreigners Act of 1946, based on the Foreigners Order of 1964. The state has 100 Foreigners Tribunals.
Several such “declared foreigners” were released on “conditional bail”, and they were required to be present at the local police station from time to time.
