It is a matter of great relief that the Gauhati High Court had granted interim bail to Md Sana Ullah, a former Honorary Captain of the Indian Army on Friday. Md Sana Ullah, who hails from village Kalahikash under Boko police station in Kamrup district, was earlier declared a foreigner by a Foreigners Tribunal and was sent to a detention camp where several hundred such persons are already lodged and are apparently waiting to be deported to Bangladesh. The High Court has granted interim bail to Md Sana Ullah subject to furnishing bail bond of Rs 20,000 with two local sureties. The High Court, in its order has also made it amply clear that Md Sana Ullah, declared as a foreigner by a Foreigners Tribunal, consequent upon release from detention on bail, ‘shall not move out of the territorial jurisdiction of Kamrup and Kamrup (Metro) districts without prior information and approval’ of the Superintendent of Police (Border), Kamrup. The High Court, one must keep in mind, has not absolved or acquitted Md Sana Ullah. He is out only on interim bail. That exactly is why the High Court has clearly mentioned in its bail order on Friday that the concerned authorities shall obtain the biometrics of both the eyes, the fingerprints of both hands and photograph of Md Sana Ullah prior to releasing him. While it is a fact that not all enquiries and investigations carried out by the police under instruction of the numerous Foreigners Tribunals are foolproof and carried out in a professional manner, Md Sana Ullah is not the first and only person who had served in the Indian Army to have been served a notice or declared a foreigner. It was in 2017 that two youth Ashraf Ali and Kismat Ali of village Sonajuli in Udalguri district – whose parents had come to Assam from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar respectively in the 1950s – were picked up by the police after they were declared as foreigners by a Foreigners Tribunal. It was only after landing in a detention camp that the two persons began to seek legal support and were finally ordered to be released by a Supreme Court order. What was discovered during the Court’s intervention was that the duo was initially approached by a police constable saying there was a FT notice against them. The two sent back the policeman, saying they weren’t Bangladeshis but Indian Muslims with roots in UP and Bihar respectively. The policeman went back and told the Tribunal that the duo had refused to receive the notice. The Tribunal passed an ex parte order in their absence and asked the police to arrest and send them to the detention camp. While this is one side of the numerous cases of people being declared as foreigners, the other side is that a large number of infiltrators and their descendents have allegedly managed to obtain genuine documents from government officials and clerks on the basis of false declarations and bribery to get their names enrolled in the electoral rolls and also probably into the National Register of Citizens. Yet another aspect of the story could be that when Bangladeshi infiltrators and their descendants can easily procure various kinds of documents and enroll themselves as Indian voters, one cannot rule out the possibility of such persons also making entry into the defence services including the Army, Air Force and Navy.