It’s 58-yr-old Cooch Behar woman’s turn to get NRC notice from Assam
Times of India | 1 August 2025
12 Jalpaiguri: Yet another Cooch Behar resident has received an NRC notice from the Assam Foreigners' Tribunal. Mamina Bibi, a resident of Salbari in Tufanganj-II, along the Bengal-Assam border, has been asked to appear before the tribunal with her documents.
Issued on Sept 1, 2024, the notice was handed over to 58-year-old Bibi at her home by officers from Tufanganj police station on Wednesday.
Bibi was married to Azimuddin Miyan, an Assamese man from Dhubri's Agomani, 40 years ago. After living there for a year, she moved to Salbari. Her husband gave her talaq after having his second son, and Bibi has been living with her two sons since then.
"I have never voted in Assam. My name is registered in Bengal voters' list. I don't know why I was served a notice," Bibi said. The notice shows the case against her was lodged in 2019.
As the news spread, the Cooch Behar Trinamool leadership, led by district president Avijit De Bhowmik, visited Bibi at her house on Thursday. "We have asked her not to respond to the notice and not to worry as well. Our party and govt is with every such Bengali-speaking person who is targeted in Assam," Bhowmik said.
Citing an Assam govt notification dated this Feb, where it recognised people from Koch-Rajbanshi community as indigenous people of Assam, BJP accused TMC of trying to play with the sentiments of Bengalis. "When Assam govt has notified all Koch-Rajbanshi people as indigenous people, TMC's effort to convince people on this is just dirty politics to safeguard illegal Bangladeshis living here and vote for them," said Avijit Barman, BJP's Cooch Behar president.
Earlier, the Assam govt identified Uttam Kumar Brajabashi as an illegal immigrant residing in Dinhata. Septuagenarian Nishikanta Das, a resident of Mathabhanga, was also served an NRC notice. Although Das appeared at the hearing and produced an Aadhaar card, EPIC and ration card, the tribunal rejected those as residential evidence. Another Tufanganj resident, Arati Ghosh, left Assam even before she was served a notice. She claimed that as she did not have documents that the Assam govt was looking for, she returned to her ancestral house in Baxirhat.
There are 15 seats reserved for SCs in Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, North Dinajpur and South Dinajpur, mostly because of the Rajbanshi population.