Rahim Ali, a daily wage labourer of Bantipur village in Barpeta district of Assam allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself due to exclusion of his five children from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on Friday night.
The name of Rahim Ali (37) and his wife were included in the draft NRC but their children’s names were not included in the draft.
Jorina Khatun (33), the sister of the deceased, claimed that NRC was the reason of the suicide of her brother. “Ali was tensed about the exclusion of name of his children in the NRC. He was afraid about their future if they fail to make in the NRC. He knew about the Foreigner Tribunal and its hurdles… For a daily wage labourer it is impossible to gather money for the same. Unable to decide what to do, he was suffering from huge mental pressure and trauma,” Khantun told TheNewsMill.
Inspector Pranjit Das, Officer In-Charge of Barpeta Police station told TheNewsMill that the incident was a suicide case. “The cause of the suicide is not known yet as there was no suicide note. The deceased was sent for post-mortem. We can know the cause of death only after we get the post-mortem report,” he said.
Ashraful Hussain, activist from Barpeta district said, “Around 50 people have committed suicide during the NRC update process. We are documenting such incident from the last few years. The state is directly responsible for this incident. The problem has become more complex due to the state interference. If the government would help them, this incident might not have happened in the first place.”
Hussain also argued that if the NRC is updated to identify Indian citizens in true sense then these suicides would never have happened. “People are satisfied that they made into the final draft of NRC. But some names are now being excluded just before the publication of the NRC. This has resulted in a state of shock for many. People are astonished as they have little time to prove their citizenship again in spite of the fact that their names were included in the first draft. The officer-bias, tribunal-bias and NRC results are leading to suicides,” he said.
Editor’s note: The headline was re-edited after publication.
