21, May 2020 | Kuntal Chakrabarty

Detention camp in name only, actually it’s a jail. She has spent years and years in the same minikin cell. Life is just wailing and wailing. Suddenly one day she heard his release order. Forty-eight-year-old Jubeda Khatun spent five years in a detention camp and finally came out under the open sky. It’s the result of tireless efforts of a group of young people from Citizens for Justice and Peace. Jubeda, who gave up hope of getting out of D-camp in her lifetime, never thought anyone could fight for her. In her five years of captivity, no one had ever visited her. When she entered in detention camp, she left his eight-year-old son Asiqul Islam outside. Year after year Jubeda didn’t even see her son’s face. In a life that is full of wounds, it is really strange to get a hope of live. Such was the situation of Jubeda. She has repeatedly asked cjp volunteers, “Who are you? Why did you help me so much?”. After knowing all said again, “I don’t know why you have extended a helping hand to free me from captivity. But from now I will pray for you in my every prayer”.

Jubeda’s suddenly identified as a ‘foreigner’ and moved to detention camp, once again showed that women who have gone elsewhere for marriage, especially those who are socio-economically backward, how to face hardships. According to Zamser Ali, state coordinator of the CJP, Assam, “Women have problems with documentation for moving from one place to another after marriage. This is exactly the reason why many women in Assam have been left out of the NRC”.

Jubeda was born in Manipurtup village of Nagaon district. Her father’s name is Foijuddin Ali. Jubeda is the youngest of the three sisters. Two sisters- Ashiya Bibi and Rahela khatun. Jubeda was married to Nikhati Ali. Although Nikhti Ali was originally a resident of Bihar, but he lived in Chaparmukh of Nagaon District. After marriage, Nikhati-Jubeda lived in Chaparmukh for 5years. But in every moment of the world there was a pitch black darkness of scarcity and paucity. In order to increase his income, Nikhti moved to Moriani in Jorhat district in search of work. Two years later, Jubeda also moved in with her husband. Jubeda used to work in people’s houses. Nikhti used to drive a wheelbarrow. The family of 3people with the youngest son was running smoothly. However, the family was devastated after Nikhti died. The boy was seven or eight then. Jubeda fell into the deep sea after her husband’s death. They could not overcome the grief of Nikhti’s death, at that moment Jorhat police picked up Jubeda. Because, the border police has filed a foreigner case in the tribunal in her name. Jubeda was produced at the FT. How to catch a lawyer who spends her days starving! Still, Jubeda showed some papers which she had. The tribunal did not accept them. At the end, Jubeda’s place is in the detention camp of Kokrajhar. She was there for 4 years. She was then sent to Jorhat detention camp.

For so many years no one went to see her. However, a couple of years ago, Jubedar’s son Asiqul contacted Rafiqul Islam, a volunteer of CJP, for the release of his mother. After hearing all this, Rafiqul approached Faruk Ahmed, in-charge of Nagaon-Morigaon district of CJP. Then Zamser Ali entered the field. He went to detention camps in Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Jorhat and Tezpur but did not get any information about Jubeda.
As if a woman who had been identified as a foreigner and had gone to the detention camp had disappeared into the air. Zamser Ali said Jubeda had been almost missing for five years. No one knew where she was. However, the CJP team did not stop. Finally, one day, Jorhat police issued a letter to release Jubeda.
The Supreme Court has declared that those detained in detention camps for three consecutive years should be released on bail. As a result of the tireless efforts of the CJP and the order of the country’s highest court Jubeda came out from the Jorhat detention camp on April 29. Zamser Ali said that although she was from Manipurtup village, Jubeda went Chaparmukh to live with her husband after marriage. Manipurtup village is in Raha police station area. That police station could not give any information about Jubeda. CJP can know about Jubeda from Chaparmukh. Zamser Ali says that changing the address of married women who are economically and socially backward is a big problem. They fell into the deadly complication of documentation. The same happened in the case of Jubeda. Nanda Ghosh, another CJP volunteer said, Jubeda was shocked at first to see the people waiting for her as soon as she left the D-camp. She suffers from chronic loneliness in the long chapter of captivity, seeing so many people on the day of her release that she could not speak. It seemed that Jubeda was a little scared. But after calming down, Jubeda told the cjp volunteers who went to fetch Jubeda from the D-camp, “Whenever I pray namaz, I will pray(dua) for you.”