00:01Shona Banu is a shell of her former self.
00:04Although she was allowed to return to her home in Assam, her brief deportation to Bangladesh
00:09haunts her.
00:10Weeks after her harrowing experience, she struggles to believe she's safe.
00:15My brain is not working.
00:17How can it work?
00:18I feel strange.
00:19Had I died, it would have been better than this torture.
00:25Banu says she was called in for what seemed like a routine check at the local police station.
00:29But she was transported overnight to a detention camp and then pushed over the border into
00:36Bangladesh.
00:37They forced us through the border fence and shoved us to the other side.
00:40They started scaring us, as if they were going to fire on us.
00:43They pushed me into knee-deep water.
00:47Banu's brother, Ashraf Ali, has been trying to support her.
00:52The ordeal to prove her Indian citizenship is not new to the family.
00:56A local tribunal declared Banu a foreigner a decade ago.
01:00We have been fighting her case in the Supreme Court for eight years.
01:05Despite this and spending so much money, they took my sister away.
01:11Anyone who has been declared a foreigner could be at risk.
01:14These are not isolated cases.
01:17In this neighbourhood alone, many people have already approached us with their documents,
01:22hoping for help.
01:23The numbers and estimates vary, but the government at one point said that as many as 150,000 residents
01:29of Assam have been declared foreigners.
01:31In a neighbouring district, the deportations have also terrorised Azimun and her husband
01:37Qadir.
01:38I'm terrified.
01:41I don't want to stay home at night.
01:45I'm losing my mind with worry.
01:47I haven't been able to sleep for many nights.
01:49I'm constantly worried.
01:50I spend the whole night worrying.
01:52Their family has also spent decades in legal battles to prove they are Indian, collecting
02:00documents and receiving notices in a language they don't understand.
02:04A year ago, Qadir had a stroke his family says was caused by stress.
02:11He breaks down in tears every time their status is discussed.
02:15My grandfather and my grandmother have papers.
02:20My father is on the citizen list.
02:22He's been on all the electoral rolls.
02:24I'm not a Bangladeshi.
02:26All my ancestors, my whole family is Assamese.
02:29I'm not a Bangladeshi.
02:31I've submitted all my documents.
02:33Still, they have made me a Bangladeshi.
02:35BJP spokesperson Kishore Padhi is sceptical of such papers.
02:41He says they can be easily forged.
02:44Bangladeshi immigrants are falsely linking their names to Indian ancestors.
02:50We have to end this.
02:52An illegal immigrant comes here and takes advantage of the gaps in our system.
02:56Threatens our political future.
02:59We cannot accept that.
03:02Upadhyay says the government will thoroughly recheck citizen lists and evict more foreigners.
03:08He claims their presence is part of a larger plot for an immigrant takeover of Assam.
03:15If they're out to kill us, hurt our politics, our culture, to dominate us, why should we protect
03:20their human rights?
03:21Why should we suffer ourselves to protect their human rights?
03:26Shah Jahan Ali disagrees.
03:28He's been working as an activist for over 15 years, helping people with the grueling process
03:34of proving their citizenship.
03:36Most of those affected are illiterate.
03:39They don't understand these official documents.
03:42And they're all in English.
03:45I've checked the documents of over 5,000 people.
03:50One by one each page.
03:52And not a single person is a Bangladeshi.
03:54But a minor spelling or date error in these documents can cause someone to be declared a
04:03foreigner.
04:04Shah Jahan says these deportations add to a clear targeting of poor Muslim families.
04:09We're going to have state elections here in Assam next year.
04:15When Hindu-Muslim polarisation happens here,
04:20it helps the BJP get more votes.
04:23The deportations have left tens of thousands of Assam residents in dread.
04:31The dread of being denied a legal process they don't understand.
04:35And of finding themselves being forced into what for most would be a foreign land.
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