Every 3rd person in Hojai out of NRC draft, most in Assam

The pot holed road, ravaged by the rains, which leads to the sleepy town of Hojai is lined with billboards and posters about the philanthropic work done by a charity named after Ajmal family.

It’s called Ajmal foundation the town’s most well known personality—Badruddin Ajmal, MP and perfume baron, who heads the All India United Democratic Front. He runs a hospital, a public school among other things.

While Ajmal is part of the complete draft of National Register of Citizens, Hojai district’s almost every third applicant is not. According to government sources the district has 3,36,789 applicants excluded from the draft, 33% of the total applicants, maximum in the state, a figure confirmed by a senior district administration official on condition of anonymity.

Shamsuddin, a cleric who works as a vice president in one of the organisations connected to Badruddin Ajmal, is clueless why him and five others in the family do not figure in the complete draft.”I submitted copies of my land document from 1966 which I got from Bihar,” Shamsuddin (62), who moved to Hojai from East Champaran to work as a teacher in a local madrassa.

Like Shamsuddin, Nanigopal Debnath, too, moved to Hojai town in 1970s. He first left his home in Jamunamukh, a neighbouring town in 1960 when violence erupted between Bengalis and Assamese. Debnath says the families, which had returned had to leave again in 1972, when there was renewed violence post tension between the Bengali and Assamese. Debnath, is unemployed, distraught and claims that despite the documents, the whole family has been left out of the draft.

The figures are more stark in Derapathar, a remote village in Lumding block, which its inhabitants claim was settled in 1967 when refugees from East Pakistan, were moved here by the government. Locals, comprising the five communities — Hajongs, Koch Rajbongshis, Garos, Dalu and Bengalis — say almost 70 % of the locals are out of the list.

“We can’t even complain. Whom do we even discuss it with? Almost every house has someone or the other missing from the list,” Subimal Hajong, who took voluntary retirement from Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB). His entire family has not made it to the draft.

The reason for exclusion given to him says his list ‘A’ documents, are not valid.

“Will they make us a foreigner again?” asks Sipendra Dalu as he recounted how there was a jungle when the refugees were moved here. “We cut the jungle and built houses. Look they give us money, clothes, even a blanket,” he said, showing a card which listed the relief given by the government. “Even then whole family is out. We are about to die. What about the children and their future,” he asked.

While Indo-Bangladesh border districts of Dhubri, South Salmara and Karimganj have an exclusion rate of 8.3% or less, what made Hojai on top of the exclusion list?

“Nestled between Brahmaputra Valley and Barak Valley, the region has seen migration all through, from Sylhet, Mymensinh, Dhaka and from Bihar, UP and even from other parts of Assam and North East,” a district official explained. “It is mostly a district of migrants. There are only about 5% who come in the category of original inhabitants,” he said.

HOJAI(ASSAM): HOJAI HAS SEEN 3,36,789 APPLICANTS EXCLUDED FROM THE NRC DRAFT —

33% OF THE TOTAL APPLICANTS IN THE DISTRICT AND MAXIMUM IN THE STATE, AS PER GOVERNMENT SOURCES