CJP’s arduous task of rehabilitating citizens continues unabated CJP's unwavering commitment to Assam's citizenship victims sustains as it comes to the aid of released detainee suffering with poor health and poverty.
30, May 2023 | CJP team
In November 2021, CJP succeeded in seeing Mojibor Sheikh reunite with his family. CJP secured his release from Assam’s Goalpara detention centre. Mojibor Sheikh is a daily wage earner and belongs to the Shaljhora village, which falls under the Dhalgaon police station, in Chirang District of Assam.
He had been declared a foreigner and thrown into bars about three years ago. Expressing himself with intense tears at his release, Sheikh exclaimed how his village in Assam has witnessed his birth, his childhood and his whole life, so how could he have been detained as a foreigner! He and his family were extremely happy and overwhelmed at having him back home.
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!
Even after Sheikh’s release, CJP’s diligent Team Assam has maintained contact and conversation with him post-release to ensure the process of easing back into life after going through the harrowing experience of being detained goes easy. This has been a consistent practice of CJP with all released former detainees. The team makes routine checks in released detainees’ health if there is any further documentation and any remaining legal assistance required, as well as their financial conditions. CJP in the past has aided citizens with finding sustainable work in the past as well.
In April 2023, CJP made its routine visit to Mojibor Sheikh’s home. They had visited to collect his and his parents’ documents and enquire about Sheikh’s present condition. However, neither Sheikh nor his wife were at home, his mother informed the team. The family was witnessing severe hardship – being detained to live in inhumane conditions took away Sheikh’s health forever, from which he never recovered. However, having experienced some ease in his health, Sheikh quickly went in search of work. Which was where he was, when CJP’s team visited his home. His mother informed the team that she too was suffering from illness and pain.
This instance displays CJP’s tireless and unrelenting conviction to their task in Assam – which does not end when an individual is released from the clutches of the detention camps or from the Foreigners Tribunals, but continues much farther. CJP undertakes sustained work with people in Assam more so because it understands that a citizenship crisis in one’s life does not end abruptly with one chapter, but since it affects almost every aspect of an individual’s and his, her family’s life, it is throughout series of crises citizens face that CJP stands with, with determinate resolve and unwavering commitment.
Related:
Victory! Mojibor Sheikh released from Assam Detention Centre with CJP’s help
CJP Impact: Another woman saved from the spectre of facing statelessness in Assam!
Saheba Bibi’s long march for justice persists as she seeks CJP’s aid
