Three people have filed cases against an Assam border police inquiry officer, who had used their signatures as witnesses in the case that eventually made ex-Serviceman and Kargil war veteran Mohammed Sanaullah a foreigner.

The border police, unique to Assam, is tasked with detecting, detaining and deporting foreigners or illegal immigrants. A wing of the State police force, it was set up in 1962 to initially check infiltration of people from Pakistan.

Md. Kurban Ali, Md. Sobhan Ali, and Ajmal Ali – all from areas near Boko, a small town 60 km west of Guwahati – on Sunday filed the cases against sub-inspector Chandramal Das at the Boko police station claiming he had never met them.

Now retired, Mr. Das was the border police inquiry officer who allegedly recorded the trio’s statements in the case against Sanaullah in 2008. The case was referred to a Foreigners’ Tribunal (FT) that declared him a foreigner on May 23.

Kubran Ali of Koloikash village – same as Sanaullah’s – said he had never given any statement or his signature though his name is mentioned in FT case number 1978/16 against the former soldier. The other two also claimed that their signatures were forged and sought action against Mr. Das in their FIRs.

“I am handling the case involving the FIRs against the former soldier,” Jogendra Barman, officer in charge of the Boko police station said.

Sanaullah was appointed as a sub-inspector in the border police after retiring from the Army as an Honorary Captain in 2017 at the age of 52. The border wing discharged him from service on May 29 and subsequently he was lodged in the Goalpara detention camp for foreigners.

The three witnesses and members of Sanaullah’s family said the border police have been targeting genuine Indian citizens from minority groups in the name of detecting foreigners and doubtful voters.

Wrong man?

Officials handling cases of people with alleged doubtful citizenship said mismatch in several documents that Sanaullah submitted to the FT went against him.

They also said that the ex-Serviceman should not have accepted the notice from the tribunal since the investigating officer of the border police had made a case against an uneducated “labour” who came to India “through a secret route”.

There have been reports that the notice was sent to the wrong Md Sanaullah after the retired soldier was taken to the detention camp. “Had it been a case of mistaken identity, he should not have contested the case and submitted various documents that were full of discrepancies,” a Home Department official said on the condition of anonymity.

One such discrepancy was his name mentioned as 25-year-old Marjyo Ullah in the voters’ list of 1989, while as per documents he provided for joining the Army on May 21, 1987, his age should have been 22 years. The ex-soldier could not clarify before the tribunal why the names of other members of his family were not included in the voters' lists of 2005 and 2010.

Besides, his mother Bhanu Bibi’s names differed in the voters’ lists of 1970, 1977, and 1989. His wife’s name too was different in different documents, the tribunal found.

Officials said Sanaullah did not inform the Army about the case having been initiated against him in 2008. Neither did the Assam Police receive any query from the armed force in this regard.