The case involving Abdul Hasim, resident of village No 3 Pub-Samarali under Murajhar police station in Nagaon district of central Assam, came to light by chance — when he challenged a Foreigners’ Tribunal verdict that declared him a Bangladeshi infiltrator.

Hasim incidentally is from the same police station area from where another Bangladeshi infiltrator, Md Kamarudin, who had even contested an election, was finally nabbed and pushed out to Bangladesh on Monday.

Hasim had submitted his passport, issued by the Regional Passport Office on July 31, 2006, as one of the several documents to prove that he was an Indian citizen and not a foreigner as proclaimed by the Foreigners’ Tribunal.

“It is a unique case of its kind, in which a foreigner (Bangladeshi national) not only illegally entered Assam, India, but has also been merrily roaming around. If his claim is to be believed, he has also become a voter having his say not only in the making of the Government, but is also deciding the destiny of the nation,” said Justice B K Sharma, who passed a judgment in this case on June 25 this year.

Justice Sharma also went on to say that “the shocking revelations”, which came to light in the course of the case, “give a dangerous and gloomy picture of Assam and India in the matter of unabated infiltration from Bangladesh, seriously telling upon the demographic pattern of society and the identity of the indigenous people of the state.”

Based on the judgment, a case was registered against Hasim by the then Illegal Migrants Determination Tribunal (IMDT) at Hojai in Nagaon district on July 2, 1988, following which a long-drawn procedure declared him a foreign national. Cases were also registered against seven other members of his family.