Nearly 4 million people insist they are Indian but who now must prove their nationality as the politics of citizenship — overlaid with questions of religion, ethnicity and illegal immigration — swirls in Assam where such questions have a long and bloody past. On Friday, some of the 3.9 million residents left off Assam’s draft list of citizens began picking up forms to file their appeals, wading into a byzantine legal and bureaucratic process that many fear could lead to detention, expulsion or years in limbo. While the NRC draft questions the residents’ citizenship is the State of Assam in northeastern India, a group of 36 women from that very region are being deployed at strategic locations in Delhi for securing the Independence Day celebrations.
The Delhi Police on Friday inducted India’s first all-woman SWAT team (Special Weapons and Tactics) for anti-terrorist operations. The elite women commandos hail from the northeastern states and have gone through months of tough-as-nails training to make the team. These women won’t think twice before fighting in the line of fire while the people they’ve grown up with are drafted. Such is their dedication to a nation, which has failed to safeguard the indigenous people of the northeastern region since Independence.
Ironically, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh expressed happiness that the Delhi Police has raised an all-woman SWAT team at a function to induct them. Singh said, “Their training includes basic, commando and advanced honing of skills under the tutelage of NSG (National Security Guard) trainers. The Delhi Police has raised the commandos for anti-terrorism duty under the Special Cell unit of the force.”
