Afghans under scrutiny, a bird changes its call, and avalanche in Nepal

3 Things

The episode covers three significant news stories: the anxiety within Jamshedpur's Afghan-origin community following voter roll revisions, t

Key takeaways

• A voter roll verification exercise in East Singhbhum led to the deletion of approximately 3.38 lakh names.
• Three Afghan-origin men, including Mohammad Ibrahim, are under investigation following passport verification discrepancies.

Main topics

• Jamshedpur voter roll revision
• Afghan-origin community citizenship anxiety

Notable quotes

The monels in Chopta valley... were calling at a and higher frequency and with greater amplitude.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a sobering reminder of how human-driven changes—

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) In today's episode, we look at how human-made noise is changing the calls of the Himalayan monel, the state bird of Uttarakhand, raising concerns about the impact of noise pollution on wildlife. We also take a look at Nepal, where a major avalanche has left two people dead and 14 missing. But first, we begin with Jamshedpur. where a voter roll verification exercise has left members of a small Afghan origin community anxious and silent. Hi, I'm Itchha Sharma and you're listening to Three Things, the Indian Express news show. In Jamshedpur, a voter roll verification exercise has opened up a far larger question about citizenship and fear among a small Afghan origin community that has lived in the city for decades. Speaker 1 (0:58) So it's a relatively small population which has been here for decades. And some families say that they have been here even since the British period. Speaker 2 (1:09) That's The Indian Express's Shubham Tegar, who reported on the story for the paper. Speaker 1 (1:14) From my reporting, I found that many of these families came to different parts of India for business and eventually settled in Jamshedpur. So traditionally, some were involved in selling dry fruits. Some are still involved in selling dry fruits, blankets and other clothes. And some of the members of this community were also involved in money lending jobs. I met people who told me that their families have been in Jamshedpur for two or three generations. For instance, a 29-year-old man I spoke to, so he said his great-grandfather served in the British Air Indian Army and his grandfather worked at a steel company. So the important thing is that when we say Afghan origin, many of these people are actually families who have been living in India for generations, not just in Jamshedpur, but also in India. Speaker 2 (2:05) Shubham tells us that the immediate case involves three related men, Asil Khan, Mohammad Aslam and Mohammad Ibrahim, who were booked during checks linked to Jharkhand's ongoing special intensive revision or SIR of electoral rolls. Officials say the three may well have lived in India for decades, like others in the community, but the central contention was that they never actually formally took Indian citizenship. Now one of them, Ibrahim, has been arrested while the other two are allegedly on the run. Speaker 1 (2:38) So according to the reports, they were already part of the voter roll process and they tried to apply for inclusion of their names during this SIR process. So they received notices because their names could not be mapped to the previous electoral roll from 2003. So if your name doesn't come in 2003 electoral roll, so you will get a notice from the election commission or the officials and your name would not be mapped. The same thing happened in this case also. So now what they had to do is they have to submit their documents to establish their identity and eligibility. So now, according to the election officials, they submitted photocopies of the documents, including the passport. So initially, the document passed the first level of scrutiny. But when the passports were sent for further verification, officials found that Ibrahim is one of those three. So Ibrahim's passport had previously been suspended on grounds that he could be an Afghan national. So the process to cancel the other two passports are still underway on similar ground. And then eventually the district administration was directed to register the FIR against the two also. So they have registered the FIR, but they are still on the run. Speaker 2 (3:55) Shubham highlights that the impact of that case is now being felt beyond the three men, and the scale of the SIR exercise is itself significant. For instance, in East Singbam district, of which Jamshedpur is a part, there were around 19 lakh electors before the revision. At the draft stage, Around 3.38 lakh names were deleted, leaving a draft roll of 15.11 lakh voters, with notices served to around 4.5 lakh people. And so against that backdrop, the case of these three Afghan origin men has become a point of anxiety for others whose lives in Jamshedpur stretch back decades, but whose legal status as such may now be questioned through documentary checks. Speaker 1 (4:44) So when I went to the areas where Afghan origin families have traditionally lived in Jamshedpur, if you'll see, there are three to four areas. And there I found that people who were normally visible in the neighborhood had now stopped appearing. And the business are also shut now. Like whatever the business they were doing about the clothes and the selling dry fruits or whatever business they were doing, now they have been shut. And even the people who are still there to whom we met. they are reluctant to speak to us and some specifically ask that their names or details not to be mentioned because they are very afraid that they could also face the police action. So in short, these people are now living in fear and do not want to come in front and show their identity. And as we know that these families have been living in Jamshed for decades and many generations. Suddenly, when there is a question about the identity and the nationality, then obviously this will create anxiety among