Dressed in white Pathani kurta and pyjama and with the Pashtun turban on and surma in his eyes, the clean-shaven Shahzada Khan seemed a worried man on the 102nd Independence Day of Afghanistan. For him, the country where he was born and lived for 17 long years, missed the “Day” this year by four days, almost similar to reaching the finals of the World Cup cricket and losing out by a single run.
“I didn’t sleep for many nights. Afghanistan lost its 102nd Independence by four days. Every soul is crying there except the Taliban, they are having a ball of a time. The Taliban are tribal Pashtuns living six months in Pakistan in winters and in six summer months they come down to Afghanistan. In our language, we call them Kuchi. When I was young, the Taliban had different names but the same people. I was in class three when one day while I went to my Maqtab, I saw my school was burning. There were no schools and if stayed there, I had to join the Taliban. I came down to India, in Silchar, Assam, and from there I travelled to many parts of India in search of a job and a place to stay. Then in 1986, finally I settled in Mirza on the outskirts of Guwahati,” says Shahzada Khan, the Afghan national.
It was in 2018 when Shahzada Kahan was given a ticket to fly home to Afghanistan almost 37 years after he decided to make Assam his home and raise a family. Shahzada who now can speak fluent Assamese is also comfortable with Hindi and English, the languages which he learnt in Assam.
Initially, into the traditional business of money lending, Khan Kabuliwalla as he is known to his people married a local girl Jahnara Begum and settled in Mirza with his two children. It was on February 4, 2017, Shahzada Khan was lodged in the detention camp at Goalpara by a Foreigners’ Tribunal court after his name was mentioned in D-voters (doubtful voters) list.
“I was languishing for 15 months in the jail in the name of detention. I have no address and permanent residence in Afghanistan and this was a hitch with the Afghan embassy. I almost had a heart attack in the airplane. I deemed that they would kill me once I land in Kabul. I was lucky as it was the month of Ramadan. Kabul city was desolate on the first day of Roza. I reached the place of the person with whom I came to India. My father used to stay somewhere nearby. I stayed with him for a month. I worked in his field for which he paid me Rs 450. While I left India from the detention camp, I had only Rs 250 with me. I needed the money. I had to come back, my family was here. A few villagers helped me with finances to get my passport done. If you shell out money, one can get his passport done in two days,” says Khan Kabuliwala.
Shahzada revisited India two months after his deportation and this time with an entry visa, which he needs to renew every year. “Please don’t even mention this. The Indian government cannot be that harsh. I have my family here, they are my ibadat. I don’t deem on my citizenship. I plead with the Indian government to allow me to stay with my family and I believe that government shall heed to my pleas. They won’t submit me to the Taliban again,” says Khan.
“If by any chance it happens that my entry visa gets cancelled then I shall die here than be killed in the hands of Taliban,” adds Shahjahan. According to records Khan hails from the Bakkhail village in Zarghon Shahr Paktika province of Afghanistan. However, in 2019, Shahjahan embraced Christianity and now he is called Prince Khan. “I have more rights in India as I have lived here for over 40 years."
In a significant change in nomenclature, the Assam government has rechristened the “Detention Centres” of the state as “Transit camps”.
A notification, signed by Niraj Verma, the principal secretary of Assam’s home and political department, on August 17, stated that “the nomenclature of the detention centre is changed to ‘Transit Camp’ for detention purpose” in partial modification of an earlier notification in 2009. There are six detention centres for holding “convicted foreigners” and “declared foreigners” inside district jails in Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Tezpur, Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Silchar. These were notified temporarily by the State government in 2009.
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