GUWAHATI: Chandradhar Das, a 102-year-old ‘D’ (doubtful) voter of Amraghat village in Cachar district of Barak Valley , who was scheduled appeared in a Foreigners’ Tribunal in Silchar on Thursday for submission evidence to claim his Indian citizenship, was asked to appear in the court again on September 14, as his statement could not be recorded because of absence of advocate from the tribunal.
Chandradhar, who had earlier spent three months in a detention camp and has been suffering from multiple old age-related ailments, was released by the Tribunal in June last with a rider that he would have to appear in the tribunal and contest his case by filing written statement offering evidence in support of his claim of citizenship.
Chandradhar accompanied by his daughter Niyati reached the court on Thursday morning in compliance of Tribunal’s order and waited lying on the floor for three hours from 9 A.M. to 12 P.M. till when a member of the Tribunal informed them that the advocate from the Tribunal’s end was absent not and thus his statement could not be recorded. The member said Chandradhar would have to appear in the court again on September 14, a source in Tribunal informed.
Peeved at the dilly-dally resorted to by the Tribunal, the old man’s daughter Niyati told media that such harassment to her aged-father was totally unacceptable. “Everytime we come, they give us some excuses and ask us to come on a new date. We are extremely poor and it gets very tough for us to come to Silchar from our native place again and again,” she rued.
“My father has been in this country since 1950 and his name is there in the 1966 voter-list. Despite being a genuine citizen, why is he being tortured?” she questioned.
Chandradhar, however, did not express any fury or anxiety. He said, “If the government thinks I need to prove my citizenship, I will have to come and do it.”
Soumen Choudhury, the advocate of Chandradhar, said it is the responsibility of the government to treat a 102-year-old man with humanitarian consideration. “Chandradhar is having valid documents to prove that he is a citizen of this country. We are simply clueless why the government is making him suffer like this,” the advocate claimed.
Cachar deputy commissioner S. Lakshmanan later spoke to Chandradhar’s family over phone and assured them that a government advocate would be made available at the Tribunal on the next date of hearing of his case.