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Retired Assam soldier asked to prove citizenship

Mohd Azmal Hoque has served in the Indian Army for over 30 years as an engineer and retired on September 30, 2016

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Mohd Azmal Hoque
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Kalahikash resident Mohd Azmal Hoque, who retired from the Army after a 30-year-long service exactly a year ago on September 30, 2016, is now an angry man. He was enjoying his post-retirement life in Guwahati when a notice from the Foreigner's Tribunal landed at his place. The notice, which has put him in the 'doubtful-voter' category, has asked him to prove that he is an Indian citizen by appearing in the local tribunal and furnishing relevant documents.

Hoque says that he missed the first date on September 11 as the notice landed at his doorstep later. He now has to depose on October 13. Hoque in a telephonic conversation with DNA said that he joined the Indian Army as a mechanical engineer in September 1986. He last held the rank of a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) when he retired.

"After a six-month military training, I have served the Army in the technical department from various places. I was at the LoC in Punjab's Khemkaran Sector and Kalaigaon, at Tawang on the Indo-China border, at Lucknow, at Kota. I also had a stint at the College of Defence Management at Secunderabad," said Hoque. He served in a non-combat role, in the computer and networking team and trained at Secunderabad 1ENE Training Centre. 

As surprising as it may sound, Hoque is not even the first person in his family to have been summoned by the Foreigner's Tribunal. His wife, Mamataj Begum, was also summoned by the same court to prove her citizenship in 2012. Ironically, the affidavit where she was identified as an Indian citizen mentions Hoque as her husband. Hoque was posted at Chandigarh at that time.

Hoque says that the summon states that he had come to India after 1971 without any documents. "My father's name Maqbool Ali) is in the 1966 voter's list, and in village surveys in 1961, 1962 and we have kheraj patta from 1963, while my mother's name (Rahimon Nesa) is mentioned in the 1951 National Register of Citizens (NRC)," he says.

In May this year, Hoque says, he had applied for a franchisee of a customer point of a bank. "The same police office of who delivered me the summon had verified my credentials then," he adds.

One of his sons is now studying at the Rashtriya Indian Military College in Dehradun, being one of the few to have bagged a yearly scholarship of Rs 30,000 per annum by the Assam state education department.

It is difficult to not miss the pain in Hoque's voice. "I am a khilonjia axomiya (someone whose origins are in Assam); I belong to this soil. Why is the government trying to harass us on communal grounds," he says.

Haque's case is one in many where the 100-odd Foreigner's Tribunals in Assam has summoned a government functionary to prove his citizenship. In July this year, dna reported about the case of Assam constable Abu Taher Ahmed receiving a summon to prove his nationality. He has since been declared an Indian citizen by the Tribunal.

As per a directive from the Supreme Court, Assam needs to upgrade its National Register of Citizens by December 31, 2017.

ARMY MAN

  • Mohd Azmal Hoque has served in the Indian Army for over 30 years as an engineer and retired on September 30, 2016.
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