Headmaster spends earned leave to free NRC-hit woman in Assam

AGARTALA: Going beyond the call of duty, the headmaster of a Tripura school spent his own money and used up 10 days from his annual leave to travel to Assam and bail out a 61-year-old woman languishing in a detention camp there after being excluded from the final NRC.
Dilip Das, the headmaster of Charilam HS School, had been summoned by the foreigners' tribunal in Assam's Nalbari to authenticate the education records of Gita Rani Sarkar, who was born in South Charilam village of Tripura's Sepahijala district and had studied in the institution he now heads.
Das had the option of mailing the documents required to corroborate the woman's citizenship claim, but he didn't want to leave anything to chance. The headmaster bought an air ticket to Guwahati and applied for 10 days' earned leave so that he could visit Nalbari and stay back till the elderly woman's release was confirmed by the tribunal.
Recognising it as a humanitarian act, the Tripura education department has since offered to convert Das's period of leave into official duty.
Gita Rani's ordeal started after her name was excluded from the NRC list even as her sons and other family members were recognised as being Indian citizens by birth. The woman failed to produce any "authentic document" issued prior to 1971 that would establish her birth year as 1958 and her admission to Charilam HS School in 1970.
A citizenship certificate issued in Gita Rani's name by the Tripura government in the early 60s was rejected by the NRC authorities. The foreigners' tribunal later summoned the sub-divisional magistrate of Bishalgarh to verify her school certificate, but no corroborative record was apparently found.
On October 10, based on Gita Rani's claim that she was admitted to Class VI at Charilam HS School in 1970, the tribunal summoned the headmaster to verify her credentials. Das, who had read and heard about the plight of many such citizenship claimants detained in Assam, resolved to dig the records till he found details of Gita Rani's association with the school.
Once he had found what he was looking for, Das decided to meet Gita Rani with all the documents available with him to prove her citizenship.
On October 21, he received another notice from the tribunal, seeking a clarification within two days. He reached Nalbari within that time, but failed to locate Gita Rani. On October 23, he appeared before the member of the foreigners' tribunal, Pranab Kr Talukdar, and presented all the documents, including a merit list of the school.
"Gita Rani was found to have had her early education in a primary school in South Charilam before shifting to Charilam HS School in Class VI. The tribunal was convinced by the documents and included her in the citizenship rolls," Das told TOI. A few days later, Gita Rani's name was removed from the list of people detained at the camp as foreigners. Das returned to Tripura last week, safe in the knowledge that a wrong had been righted and satisfied at having played his part in it.