Uttar Bankata (Bankura, Bengal): Mahasina Khatun, a housewife from Uttar Bankata village in Bankura district, says police came to her house just before lunch on August 3.“We are letting you go today because we see you have a child. Otherwise, we would have arrested you and taken you away. We will come back after a few days. By then, you will have to resolve the problem with your name in the electoral roll and prove that you are a citizen of this country,” Khatun recounts police as having said.Khatun has since been running pillar to post, unable to eat or rest, in a desperate bid to return her name to the electoral rolls which were revised earlier this year in a controversial process by the Election Commission.Khatun says she was born and brought up in a village in Bankura. She went to school here, got married here and has lived here all her life. She has voted repeatedly in elections. “During the SIR (special intensive revision), I filled out and submitted the form. But my name did not appear in the electoral rolls. I went to the block office for a hearing, yet my name was not included in the final voter list. I was not able to cast a vote last assembly election. Then I approached the (appellate) tribunal. My application is still pending. What crime have I committed?’’ she asks.Residents of several small and nearby villages – Jalhari, Kapistha and Badulara – came forward to speak to this reporter, vowing to attest to the fact that they have known Mahasina Khatun since she was born.“If the police come to arrest her, all of us will stand together as a shield to protect her,” said Hannan Molla of Badulara village.6. People gathered at Badulara village on Friday evening to protest the police threatening Mahasina Khatun.A crime according to policeMahasina Khatun is 27 years old. She was was born in Jalhari village under the jurisdiction of the Anchuri Gram Panchayat in Bankura 1 block of Bankura district. Her father Majrul Midya worked as a daily-wage labourer. He died when Khatun was barely one-and-a-half years old. Left to fend for family, her mother, Meherun Bibi, struggled to bring up her three daughters amid extreme poverty. Khatun spent part of her childhood at her maternal uncle’s home in the neighbouring village of Natun Gram where she studied up to Class 5. She says poverty eventually forced her to give up on her education.Khatun was married to Jasimuddin Midya, a resident of the Uttar Bankata village which adjoins her native village. Unable to find regular work in the locality, Jasimuddin migrated to Odisha, where he earns a living selling bread as a hawker.Mahasina Khatun showing her papers alongside at her Jasimuddin Midya at her house at Uttar Bankata in Bengal’s Bankura. Photo: Madhu Sudan Chatterjee.The couple now have two daughters, three-year-old Maria and one-year-old Aksha. The family survives largely on the money Jasimuddin sends home from Odisha.When this reporter visited Mahasina’s in-laws’ home early in August, fear and silence reigned supreme. While SIR deletions were common, news of arrests of deleted people was unheard of.Khatun repeats she had voted in elections several times in the past. She is listed under part number, 226, against serial number 362 of the Bankura assembly constituency.“I had mentioned my mother’s name in the SIR form because her name appeared in the 2002 SIR records. My two sisters also mentioned our mother’s name in their forms. Their names appeared in the draft electoral roll. But when the draft list was published, I could not find my name,” Khatun says.She was subsequently called to the Block 1 office for a hearing. “I went to the hearing and submitted my Voter ID card, Aadhaar card, Panchayat certificate and all the other documents and information that was asked for. The officials at the block office told me that everything was in order and that my name would be included in the electoral rolls,’’ she says. But when the final electoral rolls were published, her name was still missing.Khatun says she was subsequently advised by officials at the block office to approach the District Magistrate’s office and file an application before the tribunal for inclusion of her name in the electoral roll. She followed the advice. On April 6, Khatun says, she submitted all her documents once again before the tribunal and applied for inclusion of her name in the electoral roll. Her application bears the number APS25190030626623464.According to Khatun, the administration viewed her tribunal application on June 3, but the action status continues to show “Pending”. The Wire‘s reporting has consistently shown that the remarkably slow pace of the tribunals punishes Muslims and the poor the most.But what happened on August 3 was surprising.Police from Bankura police station came to her house along with the village police, she says. “They told me that my name was not on the electoral roll and that a question would now be raised about whether I was a citizen of India,’’ she says.Efforts to explain the process and how she had subscribed to every step of it did not help at all. The police team spoke to her in a threatening tone., she says. “They told me, ‘We would have arrested you today itself, but we did not because we saw the child’,” Khatun recounts.She does not know what to expect now, even though a month has passed.“I have done everything according to what the government asked me to do. What is my fault? All my information and documents are already with the administration. If there was a problem, why did they not resolve it? Why am I being threatened?” she asks.What the authorities sayWhen The Wire sought the police administration’s response on Mahasina Khatun’s case, Bankura police station’s inspector-in-charge, Rajot Choudhury, acknowledged that police had visited her home.“Yes, the police had gone to her house. We are visiting everyone whose cases have not been cleared by the tribunal, out of those applications which are still pending,” Choudhury said.According to him, however, the responsibility for resolving the problem faced by Khatun lies with her. “She should approach the block administration and inform them about everything. If all her documents and details are in order, perhaps the matter will be resolved. The police have nothing to do in this matter,’’ he said.The police officer’s response, however, has triggered questions and anger among the residents in the area.There anxiety has been heightened by reports of the case of Jalil Aktar, a poor and reportedly ill small farmer from Bagroi village in Uttar Dinajpur, who has allegedly been kept in various police stations and holding centres for nearly three months on allegations of being an illegal immigrant.Villagers worry that they could be next.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.