Ex-army officer from Assam Mohammad Sanaullah detained as illegal immigrant gets bail from Guwahati High Court
The Guwahati High Court on Friday granted bail to former Indian army officer Mohammad Sanaullah who has been languishing in an Assam jail after being declared as illegal immigrant in the country. Sanaullah was sent to a detention camp after a foreigner tribunal adjudged him a non-citizen. While granting him bail, the court also issued notices to the centre, the Assam government, the state coordinator of National Register of Citizens (NRC), the Election Commission and the investigation officer of the Assam Border Police Chandramal Das. Sanaulla had served in the army for 30 years before joining the Assam Border Police. The court has ordered him to pay a bail bond of Rs 20,000 and provide two local sureties for his release. He will also need to submit a bio-metric report for record before release.
Senior Supreme Court lawyer Indira Jaising has appeared in court on behalf of Sanaulla, who was arrested and locked up at a detention centre last month. It is alleged that three senior officers had fraudulently signed the case report on Sanaulla without carrying out any investigation in the case. Sanaulla has filed a police complaint accusing Chandramal Das of fabricating the investigation report. On investigation, Das has accepted that Sanaulla was not in Assam at the time of alleged probe into his case between May 2008 and August 2009. Sanaulla’s service record showed he was in Manipur conducting counter-insurgency operations during that period.
The National Register of Citizens is being updated in Assam under the strict monitoring of the Supreme Court. The apex court has appointed a state coordinator to supervise the process. The NRC is being updated to include the names of people who appear in the electoral rolls, or any other document, admissible in court to prove their presence in Assam or elsewhere in India on or before March 24, 1971. The NRC updating process began in 2013 and on July 30, 2018, a draft NRC was released.
