Rasidul Islam is used to a state of statelessness. After living in such a state for 20 years of his life, he became a citizen of India when Bangladesh and India ratified the boundary agreement on June 6, 2015, exchanging citizens in the land parcels or enclaves. There were 111 Indian enclaves on the Bangladeshi side, which Bangladesh got, and more than 900 enclave dwellers opted for Indian citizenship — Rasidul being one of them. This state of belonging did not last long, however.
Documents disregarded
Now Rasidul, 22, has turned stateless again — Indian security forces have pushed him back to Bangladesh as an “illegal immigrant” — disregarding the documents issued by the Government of India and the Government of West Bengal.
When the enclave dwellers came to India following the ratification of the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement signed in Dhaka , Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the settlement as one that would make “our borders more secure and people’s life there more stable.”
While Rasidul, along with his brother and his brother’s family, opted for Indian citizenship, his parents decided to stay back in Bangladesh in their anscestral village in Bhurungamari, Kurigram district.
Rasidul Islam is now officially stateless again. Photo: Special Arrangement
Rasidul and the others were issued “temporary travel-cum-identity pass” by the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, which says that the document is issued “in pursuance of exchange of enclaves as provided in the India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement, 1974 and its 2011 Protocol.”
Plethora of papers
On the basis of the temporary travel document, Rasidul got other identity papers as a new citizen of India.
The other papers include an Aadhaar and ration card, inclusion of his name in the electoral rolls, which entitled him to vote in 2016 Bengal Assembly elections, and significantly, a certificate from the Dinhata Sub-Division Office in Cooch Behar. The certificate says that “Rashidu” is allotted “House Number 4 in Dinhata 1 Development Block” in Cooch Behar in north Bengal.
The Sub-divisional Officer [SDO] of Dinhata, Krishanavo Ghosh told The Hindu that ‘Rashidu’ and ‘Rasidul Islam’ are the same person.
“There was a joint Indo-Bangladesh census in 2015 and the name on the certificate was printed as they were written during the census,” said Mr Ghosh. The certificate was issued on the very day the enclave dwellers entered India, which in Rasidul’s case was November 22, 2015. To clarify further, Mr. Ghosh issued a fresh certificate this August underscoring Rasidul alias Rashidu’s identity.
But all these documents — from the Indian High Commission’s travel document to the SDO’s letter — did not prevent the Delhi Police from arresting Rasidul.
As he was going to work on August 18, around 5:30 a.m., in West Delhi’s Dwarka area, he was picked up from the road and taken to the Rajouri Garden police Station.
“I showed them all the papers but they sent me for a medical test and eventually to the court,” Rasidul told The Hindu on the phone from Kurigram district of Bangladesh where his parents reside. After a month in prison, Rasidul and 35 others, suspected of being Bangladeshis, were put on a train from Anand Vihar station in east Delhi and sent to Kolkata. There they were handed over to the Border Security Force (BSF).
“In Kolkata we were divided into three groups of 12 each in Sealdah Station by the Railway Police and on September 12 we were taken to a place called Brahmo Nagar police station around 9 in the evening,” said Rasidul.
Brahmo Nagar is in Nadia district of south Bengal adjacent to Meherpur district of Bangladesh. “We were taken to a BSF camp around 10 at night at Brahmo Nagar [from the police station] and then around 12 at night taken to the border,” he said. Rasidul has “a feeling” that he and 11 others were pushed to Bangladesh through the border “not too far from Brahmo Nagar BSF camp.”
“At one point a gate along the barbed wire fencing along the border was opened and we were pushed in. BSF men showed us the way to reach the nearest town and told us not to stay there as Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) would be there,” said Rasidul. Around 3 a.m. on September 13, Rasidul found out that he was in a town called Mujibnagar, in Bangladesh.
From Mujibnagar — ironically the historic town where the Provisional Government of Bangladesh in exile was formed with its capital in Kolkata to declare independence during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 — Rasidul called his parents to tell them how and why he had disappeared for a month. He then took a bus to Kurigram.
“I was a stateless man before November 2015, living in Kurigram, for 20 years of my life,” Rasidul said. After “enjoying” Indian citizenship for two years he has ended up again in Bangladesh, without a country to call his own.
What has disappointed the young man more is that he was “not doing too badly” for himself and the family as he quickly moved out of Cooch Behar unlike others, to settle in Delhi where he got a job in a gymnasium in Dwarka. It paid him about ₹8,000 per month. To supplement his income, he began washing cars in the colonies, something that earned him a “few more thousands.”
“It was when I was going to wash cars, I was picked up. And now I do not know if I can go back to India and get my job back,” laments Rasidul.
A senior official in the West Bengal government told The Hindu that the Ministries of Central Government have been informed about the case of Rasidul Islam. “We have informed the Home Ministry in September and Ministry of External Affairs in October and are awaiting their response,” said the official dealing with Rashidul’s case. He agreed that “Rasidul is an Indian and cannot be pushed back as a Bangladeshi” and thus the State Government “expects a speedy resolution of the case.” Rasidul, however, sounds a very worried man on phone when asked if he has proper papers to live in Bangladesh.
“Now I am not a citizen of Bangladesh — in fact being an enclave dweller [I] never was one — but when the issue is resolved I am conclusively a legal citizen of India and an illegal one here. But if India does not accept me, I may land up in a Bangladesh jail,” he said.
