Kishanganj Muslims scramble for residence proofs, worry over NRC

Kishanganj: In the frontier district of Kishanganj, which borders West Bengal and Nepal and is about 21 km from the Bangladesh border, the EC’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has left people confused and frustrated.

People whose names have either been deleted from the voter list or who have been asked to submit additional proof are having to scramble to get the required documents such as residence proof certificates. The hardest hit are Muslims. 

The affected are mostly farm labourers, daily wagers and roadside vendors who have been forced to shuttle between the Block Level Office (BLO) and the Block Development Office (BDO) for the necessary certificates.

Among them was Mohammed Hashim who lost his temper while explaining his ordeal. “If a man earning Rs300 a day keeps running around officers for seven days, how will he feed his family?” said Hashim, who was at a BDO in Kishangaj’s Block Chowk.

“I had to run around for a whole week. For those with money, there are exemptions for everything, but what about labourers? My name was removed, and the master (BLO) told me to get the 2003 list. My wife’s name was also removed. They said to get the voters’ list of 2003 from my father. I had to get the list from him, and only then was the name added back,” lamented Hashim as several other men with similar tales joined him. 

“There are thousands of people like me earning Rs 300–Rs 400 a day. We only voted last year (2024 general election) but now suddenly they are forcing everyone to get so many certificates,” he said. In the office compound, Ateem Ali, a labourer, looked clueless with papers in hand. 

“Sir, we are illiterate people,” begins Ateem. “We’ve been roaming around with these papers not knowing what to do. The school master told us to submit them here but when we came, the officials here asked why we had come. I don’t understand anything. I go off to work and then they ask for some certificates, so I came here to submit the certificate.”

Another resident Farman Ali had a similar complaint.

“No one tells us properly,” said Farman. “The master told me to take the certificate to the BDO. Now that I have brought it, they are refusing to take them. We were supposed to submit papers but when I tried, the officer asked me why had I come here. My name is in the voter list, but they still ask,” he said.

In districts such as Patna, Begusarai, Purnia, Khagaria and Kishanganj, where DH travelled over the last three days, there is tension among the minority community that SIR is nothing but an attempt to bring in the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Bihar. 

The population of Kishanganj district is 10,7,076 as of Census 2011. The district’s government website pegs average literacy rate at 64.24 and says that “is one of the few districts where the population of Muslims is in majority”.

In Muslim-dominated areas, people were found rushing to government offices to get residence proof certificates. In many places, people complained that authorities were not issuing them.

“The community members are not leaving anything to chance. They are scared that they would be rendered as Bangladeshis,” said a Janata Dal(United) leader in Purnia requesting anonymity.  

A BDO DH spoke to requested anonymity after receiving a call from his senior that he was not authorised to talk to the media. The officer said there was some confusion among voters and to address that block-level agents of political parties have been asked to raise awareness.