Assam: Family members of declared 'foreigner' finally accepts

The family members of Falu Das, who was declared a 'foreigner' and lodged in a detention camp, finally accepted his body four days after his death, following negotiations with the Nalbari district administration and a local MLA, officials said on Tuesday.

Das' family were adamant in not accepting the body of the 70-year-old man, who had died on October 24, contending that their demands have to be heard to declare the deceased an Indian national.

"They finally accepted the body of Das and did not hold on to their pre-conditions. It was cremated at Chatemari village under Mukalmua police station last night," Nalbari Deputy Commissioner Bhartat Bhushan Devchoudhury said.

Barkhetry MLA Narayan Deka, a magistrate from the Nalbari district administration and other officials were present at Das' funeral.

The family members had put forth two major conditions for accepting Das' body -- all of them be included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) without any official process, and not a single member be sent to the detention camp in future.

The Assam government had refused to accept the demands, stating that these were legal matters.

Deka is understood to have offered legal help to the family for recognising him as an Indian national.

Das was admitted to the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital on October 13, as his health condition deteriorated at the Goalpara determination camp, where he was staying since 2017, after being declared a 'foreigner' by the Foreigners Tribunal.

Earlier this month, family members of Dulal Chandra Paul, who was in a detention camp after being declared as 'foreigner', too, refused to receive his body.

Only after Assam ministers Parimal Suklabaidya and Ranjit Dutta met the family and assured to provide necessary legal aid for getting Paul to be declared as an Indian national, that his cremation was done.

On October 25, the Assam government constituted a Special Review Committee to oversee various conditions prevailing in the detention centres that house persons declared as 'foreigners' by the Foreigners Tribunals.

Assam has six such detention centres.