Chakrabarty: Citizenship Deprivation as an Act of Persecution: Case Study of t practices at implementation level have rendered many potentially stateless. Many individuals and communities who have resided for generations, now stand excluded over their perceived foreignness, although the term “illegal migrant” applies first and foremost to Muslims. This tendency of finding Bengali Hindus as insiders, and Muslims as outsiders, has been apparent through statements of senior functionaries, including those of the NRC Coordinator who has specifically singled out “East-Pakistan Muslims” as cause for concern.154 Sources have widely reported that almost nine out of ten FT cases were against Muslims, and almost ninety percent of such cases resulted in a finding against the Applicant, as opposed to forty percent of findings against Hindu Applicants.155 However, out of the 1.9 million excluded, there were several Hindus, a result not anticipated by certain political groups for whom the majority Hindu population serves as the vote bank. Following this outcome, these parties appealed to the Supreme Court seeking a re-verification in the Muslim-majority districts. The petition was however rejected by the Court. 156 Nevertheless, the CAA combined with the NRC would allow all non-Muslim communities to find their way through into the citizenry lists – whether (or not) they were ‘illegal migrants’ - and at the same time exclude genuine Indian Muslims who would be at the mercy of executive discretion. In fact, this was legally affirmed in a recent case before the Karnataka High Court, Archana Purnima Pramanik v State of Karnataka,157 where criminal proceedings under the Foreigners Act, 1946, had been brought against the Applicant on the ground that she was a Bangladeshi national who had been residing in the state at least since 2003, based on fraudulent documentation. The Applicant in her Bail Application claimed that she was entitled to the benefit of the newly amended CAA. In allowing her prayer, the Constitutional Court observed that her Commissioner and the Chief of Indian Army correlating the rising Muslim population in the state with illegal immigration and through a circular reasoning, presuming that Muslims constitute illegal migrants. 154 Bismee Taskin and Regina Mihindukulasuriya, “Can’t Accept Foreigners Even If They Speak Assamese”, The Print (11 November 2019), online: <https://theprint.in/india/cant-accept-foreigners-even-if-they-speak-assamesenew-nrccoordinator-said-on-facebook/319466/>. 155 Rohini Modan, “Worse than a Death Sentence: Inside India’s Sham Trials That Could Strip Millions of Citizenship”, Vice India (29 July 2019), online: <https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/3k33qy/worse-than-a-deathsentence-inside-indias-sham-trials-that-could-stripmillions-of-citizenship>. 156 Arunabh Saikia, “Assam government releases confidential district-wise numbers of people excluded from draft NRC”, Scroll (1 August 2019), online: <https://scroll.in/latest/932527/assam-government-releases-confidentialdistrict-wise-numbers-of-people-excluded-from-draft-nrc>. 157 Smt Archona Purnima Pramanik v State Of Karnataka, Criminal Petition No. 279 of 2020 (27 January 2020) online: <https://indiankanoon.org/doc/46746234/>. Published by Osgoode Digital Commons, 2021 27