11, Aug 2023 | CJP Team

In the middle of July, District Voluntary Motivator (DVM) Habibul Bepari, from CJP’s team Assam, stepped in Bidyardabri village which comes under Agomani police station in Assam’s Dhubri district. 

Among the many residents he met, Bepari had a heartrending interaction when he met with Samser Ali, a lifelong inhabitant of Bidyardabri Village. Samser’s younger son, Fajirul Haque, had been unable to acquire an Aadhar Card which was causing them immense worry and stress. Fajirul, working as a migrant labourer outside Assam, faced numerous obstacles and issues in his everyday life due to the lack of this essential document.

Every day of each week, a formidable team of community volunteers, district volunteer motivators and lawyers—CJP’s Team Assam – is providing ready at hand paralegal guidance, counselling and actual legal aid to hundreds of individuals and families paralysed by the citizenship-driven humanitarian crisis in the state. Our boots on the ground approach has ensured that 12,00,000 persons filled their forms to enlist in the NRC (2017-2019) and over the past one year alone we have helped release 52 persons from Assam’s dreaded detention camps. Our intrepid team provides paralegal assistance to, on an average of 72-96 families each month. Our district-level, legal team works on 25 Foreigner Tribunal cases month on month. This ground level data ensures informed interventions by CJP in our Constitutional Courts, the Guwahati High Court and the Supreme Court. Such work is possible because of you, individuals all over India, who believe in this work. Our maxim, Equal Rights for All.  #HelpCJPHelpAssam. Donate NOW!

His 61-year-old father, with a heavy heart, showed Bepari showed his records and spoke of the terrible ordeal his son had to go through. Fajirul’s desperation to obtain an Aadhar Card had led him to spend huge amounts of money, painstakingly collected, on unauthorised agents.

About 27 lakh people across Assam are bereft of the Aadhar card due to government delays. In this scenario, there are often small shops and agents that often make false promise in exchange for a few to get the prized identification document for people. A few months prior, one such group emerged, claiming to issue Aadhar Cards to those facing delays. 

Understanding the precarious conditions of the father-son duo, Habibul Bepari compassionately explained the intricacies of the Aadhar Card system to Samser Ali, shedding light on the widespread problems affecting the region, making sure the two realised they were not alone. CJP’s team gave Samser Ali a copy of the Office Memorandum published by the UIDAI after discussing to ensure that the two are more informed now and don’t fall prey to unauthorised persons again. 

Fajirul Haque’s case is emblematic of the larger issue at hand. It also exposes the magnitude of the problem that countless others face across the state.

The citizenship proving process in Assam can be extremely debilitating for an already marginalised population. The complex and arduous procedures to prove citizenship status often disproportionately affects vulnerable communities, particularly those with limited access to resources. For marginalised groups, such as migrant workers, indigenous communities, and socio-economically disadvantaged individuals, obtaining essential documents like Aadhar Cards becomes a formidable challenge – documentation is often the only step that keeps them away from the prospect of becoming stateless. Bureaucratic hurdles and lack of proper assistance and resources tend to further exacerbate their struggles, pushing them deeper into despair and misery. 

As they continue their humanitarian work, CJP’s presence in Assam becomes an unwavering beacon of hope for those trapped in bureaucratic inefficiencies. Their efforts not only serve to aid individual cases like Fajirul’s but also advocate for systemic change and accountability, by talking routinely with block level officers, keeping a check on purported cases of bribery by alleged officials and so on. CJP’s commitment to justice and peace remains unshaken. 

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