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On New Year, Mohammad Nur Hussain's family were declared Indians. After a long wait of a year-and-a-half in a detention centre with their two kids as ‘illegal foreigners’, a re-trial by a Foreigners’ Tribunal, verified them as Indians.

Hussain is a rickshaw puller in Guwahati. He hails from Lawdong village in Assam’s Udalguri district. Reportedly, his grandparents' names had appeared in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) of 1951. His father’s name, along with that of his grandparents, was in the 1965 voters’ list.

Hussain's wife, Sahera Begum, too has her father's name appeared in NRC 1951 and the voter list of 1966, and the family has land documents dating back to 1958-59. The cut-off date to identify an Indian citizen in Assam is March 24, 1971.

But, none of this was worth much as police in Guwahati began investigating the couple’s citizenship credentials in 2017. In August that year, Begum’s case was referred to FT No. 4 of Kamrup (Metro) district and in January the following year, the same was done for Hussain.

Hussain and his wife Sahera Begum, are both unlettered. And the documentation process puzzles them. 

According to media reports, Hussain for 4000 rupees managed a lawyer or himself, while his wife went unrepresented at the tribunal. However, Hussain's lawyer pulled out the case, citing that Hussain will not be able to afford the successive legal fee and other expenses. Instead, Hussain was advised to flee. 

"Why should I flee? What wrong have I done?” asked Hussain. 

On May 29, 2018, the FT declared Begum a ‘foreigner’, and Hussain was declared one on March 30 the following year. Section 9 of the Foreigners’ Act says the onus of proving that a person is not a foreigner lies on the person. Thus, when he/she does not appear before the FT, the member can proceed ex parte.

In June 2019, as the couple were arrested and sent to the detention centre in Goalpara district. Since there was none to look after their children, they took their children along with them to the detention centre.

With the couple in jail, some of their relatives approached Aman Wadud, a Guwahati-based human rights lawyer, who, along with advocates Syed Burhanur Rehman and Zakir Hussain, represented them in the Gauhati High Court and later on in the FT.

On October 9, the HC set aside the FT’s orders and ordered a retrial. Towards the end of December, a couple of weeks after the couple walked out on bail, the FT declared Hussain and Begum as Indians.