DISTRICT
Barpeta
Testimony Of
Feroza Khatun

Thirty years before the complete Final Draft of the recent NRC was published, Feroza Khatun had been declared a D-voter. After years of trying to prove that she was not a foreigner, in 2014, she was finally declared Indian by a Foreigners'  Tribunal. Feroza Khatun slept soundly for the first time in decades.

On the 14th of September that same year, months after she had cast her vote, she received a notice from the Foreigners' Tribunal asking her to reappear before the court on the 25th of October. Overcome by that familiar dread, she approached a lawyer to help her prove once again to the State, which had only recently declared her Indian, that she was not a foreigner. “When the lawyer asked me for 40,000 rupees, I felt like killing myself,” she said. “I still feel like that, sometimes.”

Feroza Khatun has had to attend four or five NRC hearings so far.

Noor Salima Parvin, Feroza’s daughter-in-law sitting beside her tells us, “My name made the list. But my daughter, Kabatub Sultana's, didn't. She’s 5 years old."


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