5 Cooch Behar residents who were served Assam NRC notices make it to draft SIR list
Times of India | 17 December 2025
Jalpaiguri: Cooch Behar resident Uttam Kumar Brajabashi, who received an NRC notice from the Assam govt asking him to prove his Indian citizenship this Jan, finally breathed a sigh of relief on Tuesday. His name was on the draft SIR list.
All this while, 50-year-old Brajabashi had spent sleepless nights, fearing he would be treated as an illegal Bangladeshi intruder. The fact was that Brajabashi, a Ranbangshi from Dinhata, had never left Cooch Behar in his life.
The NRC notice claimed the Assam govt had identified him as an illegal immigrant who entered India through the Assam border between 1966 and 1971 and resided in Dinhata. It added that Brajabashi could not present valid documents during police verification.
Nishikanta Das (72), a resident of Kushiyar Bari in Ghoksadanga Latapata panchayat of Mathabhanga-II block, received a notice from the Assam Foreigners' Tribunal in the third week of April. The notice accused Das of illegally entering India from Bangladesh between 1966 and 1971 and sought his reply by May 21.
Das appeared before the tribunal and presented his Aadhaar, voter ID and ration card as proof of his Indian citizenship, but these were not accepted. A worried Das then sought help from the district administration.
Das's name was also on the SIR draft list.
In fact, all five persons from Cooch Behar who received NRC notices made it to the draft voters' list, including Arati Ghosh, Manowara Bibi and Dipankar Sarkar.
The NRC notices intensified the political rivalry between TMC and BJP. While Trinamool hit the streets, the saffron party wrote to its state leadership for intervention.
However, by then, the Assam govt had already clarified through a notification dated Feb 4, 2025, that all Koch Ranbangshis would be treated as indigenous people of Assam.
"This is the yield of the movement we did to protect our citizens. If we had not hit the streets, many more would have received such notices. This is a major victory for Trinamool," said Girindranath Barman, chairman of Cooch Behar TMC.
"TMC was playing opportunistic politics all along. They were misguiding the notice recipients, and the state was deliberately not providing them with documents the Assam Foreigners' Tribunal was seeking. Tuesday's list proved that BJP is always with our countrymen," said Abhijit Barman, Cooch Behar BJP president.