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D voter�s death in detention camp condemned

By Correspondent

SILCHAR, March 20 - Citizens� Rights Preservation Committee (CRPC), Assam, has strongly condemned the inhuman torture and humiliation meted out to Bulu Sabdokar (75), a resident of Hailakandi district confined in the detention camp of Silchar as a �D voter�.

According to Bidhayak Das Purakystha, general secretary of CRPC, the traumatic experience of staying the camp and his fight against Tuberculosis led to his death on March 17 at Silchar Medical College Hospital.

In a release issued to the media, Das Purakystha said that in 2007, the Foreigners Tribunal bench at Karimganj declared Sabdokar as a foreigner in an ex-parte judgment and in 2010 he was apprehended by the police and sent to the Silchar Detention Camp. �If the Government and its machineries had been sincere in identifying the real foreigners, then they would have settled the long-pending cases of D voters within a specific time-frame,� Das Purakystha said.

He added that the victim, who was arrested in 2010, filed a bail petition in the Gauhati High Court which is still pending for a hearing and judgment. Further, he said that the CRPC, Assam, has demanded a compensation of minimum Rs 10 lakh to the bereaved family and a Government job to the next kin of Sabdokar and will file a case to the National Human Rights Commission and bring the matter into the knowledge of the United Nations Human Rights Commission as well.

Nripendra Chandra Saha, president of CRPC, has also expressed deep anguish over the incident saying that the Government is deliberately harassing a particular community of the society in the name of D voters and foreigners; which seems to be a conspiracy and a clear of instance of �ethnic cleansing� of the Bengali community.

The leaders of CRPC claimed that the case of Bulu Sabdokar is a total violation of human rights, since doubtful citizen cannot be kept in prison along with hardcore criminals and anti-social elements. Being the sole bread-earner of the family, he spent 15 years of his life within the four walls of the detention camp only on doubtful ground of his citizenship, without any proper care, food, medication, etc. which was very necessary at this stage of his life, the leaders maintained.

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