'Illiterate' widow seeks bail in forgery case

Guwahati: Hawarun Nessa is a mother of six from the Barak Valley's Cachar district. Arrested on charges of forgery of documents to prove her youngest child's Indian citizenship for the update of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), she appealed to the Gauhati high court to grant her bail on Tuesday.

Police arrested her after a school certificate she had submitted for the NRC update in the name of her son mentioned that he was born in the 13th month of 2005. The certificate, purportedly issued by the headmaster of Jalalpur MV School, Katigorah, stated the date of birth of her youngest son, Kabir Hussain, as '01-13-2005'.

Upon seeing the absurd 13th month, NRC officials filed an FIR with Katigorah Police who immediately registered a case against her under IPC and the Citizenship Act. Subsequently, she was arrested on June 28 and then sent to judicial custody.

Nessa, a widow, from Rongpur village in Cachar district, pleaded in court that she was ignorant of the contents of the certificate as she is illiterate.

Her counsel, advocate Daiyan Hussain said, "As she can neither read or write, she sought the teacher's help in filing the NRC form, believing that he is the most educated person in the locality. In the process, the teacher issued the certificate in the name of her youngest son as his original birth certificate was unavailable with her."

In the bail plea, she said she would not have filed the document had someone informed her about the error. "The government is spending crores on the NRC update process and verification of documents. If the school certificate had been rejected straight away by any NRC official on verification, she would not have been behind bars," the counsel added.

The high court on Tuesday asked the state police to furnish the case diary by July 28.