On a humid June day, my colleague and I were in the middle of an interview in Assam’s Barpeta district when my phone rang.
It was Mostafuzur Tara, a journalist from Bangladesh’s Kurigram district, who I had contacted a week ago.
Mostafuzur had helped me report on the story of 14 people from Assam, who had been picked up on May 27 from the Matia detention centre in the dead of the night.
There were rumours that they were being taken to the Bangladesh border and left there, but no confirmation was forthcoming.
The next morning, however, Mostafuzur’s video report brought proof that the 14 men and women, who had spent all their life in India, had been forced out of the country and into a swamp in the no man’s land between India and Bangladesh.
I answered the phone. Almost immediately, Mostafuzur handed over the phone to an elderly woman. She was in tears, her voice exhausted.
“Please take me back to Assam,” she said. “I don't have anyone here.”
The woman, in her 60s, said she had been pushed into Bangladesh by the Border Security Force along with the other declared foreigners.
Declared foreigners are Assam residents who have been pronounced non-citizens by foreigners’ tribunals because of inadequacies in...
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