A WhatsApp group and a bunch of good samaritans is holding otherwise helpless families of detainees under Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) together in times of turmoil.

For over three years, villagers of Oudubi are lending a helping hand to 35-year-old Binabala Das and her two little children from stocking up her kitchen to taking efforts for securing a release for her husband Dugdhan Das (45), who has been behind bars after being declared a ‘foreigner,’ in his own state.

Organised as a WhatsApp group named – ‘Oudubi Yuva Samaj,’ in April this year, 40 young men from the neighbourhood have come together for a cause. Their mission is to help families who are in distress because of their provider being lodged in detention centres.

Binabala, otherwise, has found it nearly impossible to run her family of three. “Working as a maid in this small place, I can barely make ends meet on a daily basis,” she complains referring to her village Oudubi, situated in western Assam’s Bongaigaon district.

Her children, Niren Das, 10, and Buddheswari Das, 11, look curiously from inside the rickety house as their mother explains the financial woes. The eldest daughter Bobita has already been married off to ease the pressure on their mother, they inform.

Their neighbours, however, maintain that the situation was not so bad earlier. “Everything changed the day Binabala’s husband, who owned a tea shop, was taken to a detention centre in Goalpara in April 2016,” says Asanoor Rahman, a resident of the same village.

In Assam, detention centres are special facilities which are carved out of district jails and used to house people declared as ‘foreigners.’ The declaration is made by a quasi-judicial institution known as the foreigners’ tribunal on cases referred to it by the state’s police and election commission. At present, there are a hundred foreigners’ tribunals in Assam.

While these bodies have existed in the state for almost 50 years now, they have become all the more relevant in Assam’s present political landscape. The reason is the updating of the NRC in the state since February 2015.

The currently updated NRC, with the cut-off date of citizenship as March 24, 1971, aims to detect the illegal immigrants residing in Assam and then follow the necessary legal course.

As per the modalities laid down for doing that, people like Dugdhan, who are lodged in detention centres, following orders from the foreigners’ tribunals, are going to be excluded from the final register coming out on August 31. Their descendants who are born on or after December 3, 2004 will also be left out similarly. This makes two of Dugdhan’s children ineligible too.

Perturbed by such developments, Binabala wastes no time to narrate their ordeal. “Dugdhan’s plea has been rejected by the foreigners’ tribunal and the [Gauhati] High Court too. They say it is because he had missed a couple of hearings before the tribunal, thus leaving ground for being a suspected foreigner. But we have the required papers of the pre-1971 period to prove our case,” she argues.

According to her, the reason for missing the hearings was a serious leg injury that crippled her husband at the time. “We have tried to highlight this point in court along with furnishing the papers. But the process is lengthy and has already taken a good amount of money. Now, the matter is pending before the Supreme Court,” she says.

While the family’s fate remains under a cloud, there has been some good news too in recent times. Subject to certain terms and conditions, a Supreme Court order in May this year has paved the way for release of all those who have completed three years in detention centres. Dugdhan, who has exhausted this period, is eligible for a homecoming now.

However, for illiterate Binabala, maneuvering the bureaucratic layers to meet the criteria of her husband’s release has proved a serious battle. Among other things, two Indian citizens need to furnish a surety bond of Rs. 1 lakh each for the release of such detainees. With income hardly enough to support the family, guaranteeing this has proved impossible for her.

However, to their relief, Binabala and her children are not alone in this. A group of residents from the locality have come forward to help Dugdhan return to the village. With their solidarity and support, the family now waits for the day with hope.

“After all these years, we have been told that our father is likely to come back soon. We are eagerly waiting for that now,” say Niren and Buddheswari with anticipation. It’s been four months since the last time they met him in the detention centre, they add.

Among the group of people helping the family, Monowar Hussain, a journalist with a local Assamese daily, has assumed the leading role. “We have been involved in the case since the very beginning. Now we are doing all the paperwork needed for Dugdhan’s release”, Hussain says.

In addition to that, he says that they have also tried to resolve the financial complexities of the release process. “As these people do not have the means to guarantee the bond required, we have ensured that by producing the necessary witnesses before the authority. Now, we have been told that the file is being processed in the concerned department of the state government,” he says.

Binabala firmly believes that it would have been impossible for her husband to return without such timely help. But she is quick to add that it is not for the first time that they have received assistance from these thoughtful fellow residents.

“Thanks to a bunch of compassionate youth from our village, my financial worries have somewhat minimised in the last five months or so. This is because every month they have been giving us a certain amount of household rations. This has at least ensured that none of us go hungry to bed,” she says sounding a bit relieved.

“There are two such families in our village. Seeing their plight, we all decided to pitch in some money individually and help them with a regular support system,” says Saifullah Sarkar, the founder of the WhatsApp group, who runs a pharmacy in the Oudubi market.

Sarkar says that every month the members distribute to the families essentials like rice, pulses, sugar, salt, kerosene, vegetables among others. “On festive occasions, like Durga Puja or Eid, we have also given clothes and other gifts to the children,” he adds.

The other family, which Sarkar talks about, is of fifty-three-year-old Ajbahar Ali, situated a hundred metres away from the Das family. Like Dugdhan, Ali has been in detention in Goalpara since June 2016 and is now eligible for a return home.

Despite his claims that he has proof of his Indian citizenship, Ali too had missed a couple of hearings before the foreigners’ tribunal and was accordingly detained. Soon after, Ali’s wife Balijan Bibi committed suicide. But their children, seven of them, have found warmth and hope thanks to their concerned neighbours.

“With a meager income of around Rs 3,000 a month, we had struggled a lot before we started receiving the aid from Oudubi Yuva Samaj,” says 23-year-old Sahidul Islam, the eldest son of Ali.

He adds that only two of the five living in the house earn at present. And two sisters got married earlier. “The others still go to school. So we have to cover those expenses too. The assistance from our neighbours has been a blessing to us,” he says.

Like Binabala and her children, Ali’s children too are awaiting their father’s return any time now. But here also, furnishing the legal requirements for the release has proved a big hurdle to the poor family. But Monowar Hussain and his friends, once again, have come to the rescue.

“Their case is also being challenged in the Supreme Court at the moment. The family has exhausted its resources in the legal battle so far, even after mortgaging their land. So now we have assumed every responsibility for ensuring his release from detention,” Hussain says.

The residents of Oudubi believe that it is a matter of time now before their friends return to the village. But even after that, the legal tangle surrounding them will not come to an end.

“We have already proved that if we come together, such challenges can be overcome. So in the next step, we believe we can also resolve the uncertainty surrounding the families over their citizenship”, says Saifullah Sarkar with optimism.

As the NRC is published on August 31, most names from the families of Das and Ali will be missing from it owing to the existing rules. But as per a recent notification from the central home ministry, all such people missing from the register will get a window of 120 days to prove their case before the foreigners’ tribunals.

With only a few days left for that, the residents of Oudubi are now preparing to help their friends clear the battle in the next leg ahead.