Assam woman dies after kin sent to detention camp

A 70-year-old woman in Assam’s Tinsukia died of stroke after her son and daughter-in-law were sent to a detention camp as they were declared doubtful voters.

Chotki Devi, whose family hails from Balia in Uttar Pradesh, had been staying in Tinsukia since 1945. She was living there with son Dinesh Prajapati and daughter-in-law Sarita Prajapati, along with five grandchildren.

Mohan Kumar Shah, president of All Asom Bhojpuri Parishad for Tinsukia district told ET, “The Prajapati couple, in the past, received summons from foreigners’ tribunal and on a couple of occasions they responded to the summons. However, owing to poverty, they could not attend on other occasions, following which they were sent to the detention camp.”


Recently, several organisations belonging to the Hindi-speaking community met Union Home minister Rajnath Singh and requested him to ensure that the names of Hindi-speaking people were included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

A large number of Hindi-speaking people have been left out in the draft NRC published last month. The final draft NRC included 2,89, 83,677 people, while 4,007,707 people could not make it to this draft.

The state election department has asked district election officials (DEOs) to prepare a revised list of doubtful voters in their respective areas. There are instances when several people, despite being cleared by the Foreigners’ Tribunal, could not make it to the draft NRC.