KalimNews, Cooch Behar, July 31, 2025 : A 60-year-old homemaker residing in Bansraja village under Tufanganj 2 block in West Bengal’s Cooch Behar district has received three separate notices from a foreigners’ tribunal in Assam, summoning her to appear and prove her Indian citizenship. The woman, Momina Bibi, who has spent the vast majority of her life in West Bengal, is the third such individual from the district to face this action.
According to Momina, the first notice arrived in October 2024, and the most recent came two months ago. “I was born in Cooch Behar. Nearly 40 years ago, I got married to someone in Agomoni, Dhubri district of Assam, but I returned to Cooch Behar within a year. Since then, I have been living here permanently,” she said. Momina now resides in Bansraja with her two sons.
Initially, Momina said she did not pay much attention to the notices, believing there had been some mistake. However, the issue gained traction after two other residents of the district—Uttar Kumar Brajabasi and Nishikanta Das—received similar summons. Alarmed, Momina and her sons informed their neighbours about the tribunal’s repeated demands for her appearance.
On Thursday, Abhijit De Bhowmik, district president of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), visited Momina’s home and extended his party’s full support. “We will do everything in our power to protect her. We will not allow the Assam government, led by the BJP, to take coercive steps against a bona fide Indian citizen residing in Bengal,” said Bhowmik, accusing the ruling party in Assam of overreach.
Momina recounted that she had returned to Cooch Behar with her husband after facing difficulties at her in-laws’ house in Assam. The couple later divorced, and while her former husband moved back to Assam, she settled in West Bengal permanently. “I later remarried and have lived here since. I am not a Bangladeshi. I will not respond to the notice or appear in Assam,” she asserted firmly.
A senior BJP leader, responding to the situation, stated that Indian citizens should have no fear about appearing before the tribunal. “Let the tribunal verify records. If someone is Indian, they’ll be vindicated. But the Trinamool Congress is defending individuals who may have secured fraudulent documents. It’s part of a pattern,” said the BJP functionary, suggesting that such interventions aim to protect illegal infiltrators.
The developments have reignited debates surrounding the jurisdiction of Assam’s foreigners’ tribunals and their impact on residents living near the inter-state border. While Momina maintains that her roots and residence have always been in Cooch Behar, the tribunal notices continue to raise questions about bureaucratic overreach and the administrative complexity of verifying identities in borderland regions.
As political rhetoric sharpens and pressure builds, Momina’s case has become emblematic of the broader anxieties many in Bengal’s border districts face—caught between legal scrutiny from another state and their assertion of rightful citizenship.
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