Assam restaurant serves up message for illegal immigrants, D voters

A few metres away from the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi airport is the recently introduced Kharoli restaurant that satisfies one’s craving for “homemade indigenous food”. Wednesday’s special serving was chicken prepared with sesame and duck cooked with ash gourd. The extensive menu also provides options for pork and fish found locally.

However, as one scans through the menu provided on the dining table, one thing that most drew attention was a disclaimer at the bottom, which read, “We don’t serve people of doubtful citizenship and illegal immigrants. These two categories are prohibited from entering into the premises of Kharoli.”

Apurba Doloi, the proprietor of Kharoli, concurred. “We started this restaurant in April and since then the management has taken a decision that we shall not entertain illegal immigrants and doubtful citizens in our restaurant premises. This is to discourage them as we feel that we have many of them around. I am no one to check their credentials or have such authority, but I want to give the message loud and clear that in my premises you are not welcome,” he said.

“People ask me, being a restaurant owner, why this? All are busy with their own lives. If that is so, then how will this issue be solved? My decision might not suit many but this is how I look at things and I stand by it. This is a massive problem and we are sinking. All have to play their part and being a businessman if we indulge in business only and leave these to the government, then things shall not happen, and so I took this initiative,” added Doloi.

‘D voter’, sometimes also referred to as dubious voter or doubtful voter, is a category of people in Assam who are disenfranchised by the government on account of their alleged lack of proper citizenship credentials. The D voters are determined by special tribunals under the Foreigners Act, and a person declared as a D voter is not given the elector’s photo identity card.

In 2011, the Gauhati High Court ordered the D voters to be transferred to foreigners tribunals set up under Foreigners (Tribunal) Order 1964 and be kept in detention camps. Nitin Khade, chief electoral officer (CEO) of Assam, said that the state has around 1,08,596 doubtful voters.

Altogether, 83,008 cases of doubtful voters were pending in the foreigners tribunals in Assam while 86,756 others were declared as foreigners in the last five years, the government informed the Lok Sabha in September 2020.

Replying to a question in the assembly in 2021, the state government informed that nearly 1.4 lakh illegal immigrants have been identified according to the Assam Accord so far and the authorities have deported around 30,000 of them.

According to the Assam Accord, all foreigners who came to the state on or after March 25, 1971, and stayed illegally, would be detected and steps would be taken to deport them after deleting their names from the electoral rolls.

In reply to a query by Asom Gana Parishad MLA Ramendra Narayan Kalita, Implementation of Assam Accord Minister Atul Bora said that a total of 1,39,910 immigrants staying illegally in the state have been detected so far. Of them, 29,984 were deported from Assam, the minister said, without sharing details of their country of origin.

After the initiative of Kharoli, Abhizeet Sharma from Guwahati is coming up with his eating joint named ‘1951 & 1971’. The theme is based on the cut-off years debated for determining citizenship in Assam.

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