A Kolkatan who his family said had been “keeping anxious” since the notification of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) earlier this month fearing for his elderly parents was found hanging in a relative’s house on Wednesday.
The family of Debasish Sengupta, 37, who are from what is Bangladesh now, said he was worried about his parents as they did not have “documents that would be needed to establish their citizenship”.
Sengupta, a resident of Netaji Nagar, not far from Tollygunge, was found hanging from the ceiling fan in the house of his maternal uncle in Subhashgram, near Sonarpur, on the southern fringes of the city.
His father Tapan Sengupta blamed the push for the CAA for his son’s death. He lodged a complaint with Netaji Nagar police station on Thursday saying his son was suffering from “tremendous mental trauma and agony”.
“Since the notification of the CAA, my son has been suffering from tremendous mental trauma and agony and was also in acute fear psychosis for not having all the required documents as shown in the social media and as prescribed in the said notification. On 19.03.2024, suddenly my son told me that he was going to his maternal uncle at Subhashgram,” Tapan Sengupta wrote in the complaint.
“Around 8.30pm on Wednesday, I was informed by his uncle that my son had committed suicide by hanging at his maternal uncle’s place in Subhashgram.”
The elderly Kolkatan has requested the city police to probe the death “to prevent such type of unfortunate incident in future due to thoughtless apprehension arising out of implementation of such Draconian Act”.
During the peak of the protests against the citizenship trident just before the Covid outbreak in 2020, the spectre of homelessness loomed large over multiple pockets of Kolkata known as “colonies”.
The Citizenship Amendment Act was the talking point in clubs, tea stalls and barber shops in areas like Jadavpur, Garia, Tollygunge, Behala and Dum Dum, where a large number of families are from the erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
Since the CAA rules came into effect on March 11 this year, the protests have been slowly gaining momentum once more.
The Modi government had on March 11 notified the rules for the implementation of the CAA, which attempts to fast-track Indian citizenship for all refugees and asylum seekers from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, except Muslims.
The need to declare the country of origin in the application form for citizenship, the requirement to file an affidavit declaring nationality and the need for an applicant to specify the date of entry into India are some of the issues that have people worried, interactions with people over the past fortnight have suggested.
“The moment I formally apply for Indian citizenship, it will be an acknowledgment that I am not an Indian citizen. That is a huge risk,” said a man in his 50s who attended a citizens’ convention against the CAA at Moulali Youth Centre on March 13.
Debasish Sengupta’s maternal uncle, Dilip Dey, said Debasish arrived at his Sonarpur house on Tuesday to seek his opinion on his Aadhaar card, where a wrong date of birth is mentioned.
“He was very worried for not having proper documents. Since the announcement of the CAA, he has been very tense about his parents. He was at my home when I left for work on Wednesday morning. When I returned home in the evening, the door was locked from inside and no one was responding. I went behind the house, looked through an open window and spotted his body hanging from the fan,” Dey said.
Sengupta’s family first reported the matter to the councillor of Netaji Nagar and then the police.
Senior officers at the Kolkata police headquarters in Lalbazar said a probe has been launched.
The Trinamul Congress posted on its X handle about the incident and blamed the Narendra Modi government for such a “disastrous impact”.
Trinamul national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee formed a five-member team — made up of Rajya Sabha MP Nadimul Haque, minister Shashi Panja, Jadavpur Lok Sabha poll candidate Saayoni Ghosh, party leader Kunal Ghosh and local councillor Arup Chakraborty — to meet the family of the deceased.
Leaders from several political parties met the family on Thursday evening.
A relative of the Senguptas who spoke to this newspaper said Debashis did not have a permanent job. “He would do daily chores and had been very anxious over the past few days,” she said.