Congress may help woman in detention

Guwahati: The Congress said it was exploring legal options to assist a Hindi-speaking woman having roots in Bihar after she was declared a ‘foreigner’ and sent to a detention camp in Assam.

Amila Shah, a resident of Jamugurihat, was declared a foreigner by the foreigners’ tribunal. “We are exploring legal options and will offer legal aid to Amila Shah,” Debabrata Saikia, Congress legislator and the leader of the opposition in the state assembly, told ET.

Shah is the wife of Ram Dulal Shah, a trader based in Dhalaibeel near Jamugurihat in Sonitpur district.


Her family members argued that their predecessors had settled in Assam during the British era.

While Shah’s name has been left out of the draft NRC, those of the other members of her family have been included.

Last year, Saikia had engaged advocates Syed Burhanur Rahman, Aman Wadud and SSS Rahman to fight the case of Dinesh Prajapati and Tara Prajapati, residents of Pakharijan in Tinsukia district in Gauhati High Court.

A two-judge bench of the Gauhati HC, comprising justices Manojit Bhuyan and Prasanta Kumar Deka, did not accept Dinesh Prajapati’s claim of being a member of a family based in Ballia, UP, but directed Prajapati to be released from the detention camp and allowed him to enrol at the Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO).