Kolkata Woman Served NRC NoticeL: A 58-year-old woman from West Bengal’s Cooch Behar district has become the latest individual to receive a Foreigners’ Tribunal notice from Assam, reigniting concerns over cross-border jurisdiction and the handling of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Mamina Bibi, a resident of Salbari village in Tufanganj, was served a notice originally dated September 1, 2024, by officials from the Assam Police.
The development has triggered local unrest and raised questions about the continuing ripple effects of the Assam NRC process on residents of neighbouring Bengal districts.
Decades of Settlement Questioned
According to family members, Bibi married an Assamese man from Agomani in Dhubri district over 40 years ago. She briefly stayed in Assam before permanently relocating to her parental village in West Bengal. Despite having lived in Bengal for most of her life and being listed on the voter rolls, she has now been summoned by the Assam Foreigners Tribunal to prove her Indian citizenship.
The notice asks her to appear before a tribunal in Dhubri with supporting documents, failing which she risks being declared a foreigner. Her family expressed confusion and fear over how someone who hasn’t lived in Assam for decades could be summoned under NRC proceedings.
Political and Community Reaction
The incident has prompted sharp responses from local Trinamool Congress leaders, who visited the woman’s home to offer legal and political support. Cooch Behar district TMC president Avijit De Bhowmik stated that the state government would not tolerate harassment of Bengali-speaking people under the guise of NRC.
Opposition parties, especially the BJP, have pushed back against allegations of ethnic targeting, citing previous Assam government notifications exempting Koch Rajbanshis and other indigenous communities from tribunal scrutiny. They accused the TMC of politicising the matter for electoral gain.
Kolkata Woman Served NRC Notice: Not an Isolated Case
This is not the first instance of NRC notices being served to West Bengal residents. Similar cases have surfaced in Dinhata, Mathabhanga, and Baxirhat, affecting individuals like 75-year-old Uttam Kumar Brajabashi, who was previously detained in Assam. Despite possessing an Aadhaar card, ration card, voter ID, and property records in Bengal, Brajabashi was asked to submit pre-1971 electoral records as proof of citizenship.
Many families in Cooch Behar share similar stories—of ancestral homes, valid documents, and sudden shock at being labeled “doubtful citizens.”
Jurisdictional Concerns and Legal Ambiguity
One of the core questions raised by legal experts is how Assam’s tribunals are issuing notices to people settled outside the state’s territorial jurisdiction. Although Assam and West Bengal share a porous border, each state has its own voter rolls, civil administration, and municipal authority. That Assam Police crossed over to serve such notices has only added to concerns.
Legal scholars have pointed out that unless the individual in question has active property, voting registration, or residency in Assam, issuing a notice may violate jurisdictional principles. The matter remains complicated because many border-area families share links across both states.
Historical Context of the Assam NRC
The National Register of Citizens in Assam, published in 2019, aimed to weed out undocumented migrants by verifying ancestry documents. It excluded nearly 1.9 million people from the final list. While some individuals were later able to appeal their exclusion in Foreigners’ Tribunals, many—especially poor and rural residents—struggled to furnish legacy documents from 1971 or earlier, as required by the process.
Even though Assam’s NRC is not applicable to West Bengal, occasional spillovers like these highlight how unresolved procedural ambiguities still haunt the bordering districts.
Assam’s Official Response
Reacting to the uproar, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma stated that the case of Uttam Kumar Brajabashi—cited by Mamata Banerjee—was misrepresented. He claimed Brajabashi is a Guwahati resident, not from West Bengal, and that he would have been exempted had his lawyer presented proper community documents.
The Assam government has earlier stated that Koch Rajbanshis and certain Scheduled Tribes would not be included in NRC scrutiny, yet confusion remains over how such policies are implemented on the ground.
🔗 Read about Assam’s 2023 policy exemptions for ethnic groups (The Hindu)
Human Rights Concerns and Aadhaar Freeze
Civil liberties groups have expressed alarm at the NRC’s spillover into West Bengal. Several individuals excluded from the NRC have also been denied Aadhaar cards due to pending verification or biometric lock-ups by UIDAI.
In some cases, even after producing identity proof, individuals are unable to open bank accounts, apply for government schemes, or access digital services—creating a parallel population of “paperless” citizens.
Centre’s Role and the Call for Reform
With recurring NRC-linked cases surfacing in West Bengal, there is increasing pressure on the Union government to intervene. Civil rights groups, legal experts, and opposition parties have urged the Home Ministry to either nullify Assam’s cross-border notices or create an appeals panel with interstate oversight.
While the Supreme Court has maintained that appeals to Foreigners Tribunals must be preserved, the growing number of West Bengal residents caught in Assam’s NRC web calls for clearer national policy.
Conclusion: Bengal-Assam Border Anxiety Intensifies
Mamina Bibi’s case may seem isolated, but it reflects a much larger concern—one that spans not just legal jurisdiction, but identity, politics, and citizenship itself. With each notice served, more lives are thrown into bureaucratic limbo. The central government must now clarify inter-state rules, ensure fair hearings, and protect the rights of genuine citizens caught in the NRC fallout.
Until then, families in Bengal’s border districts will continue to live in fear—of notices, detentions, and a question mark hanging over their identity.
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