The final list of the Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be out on Saturday
Sarba Bala Mallick, 71, a resident of Dalimbari, 80 km from Guwahati, and her son Paritosh are marked as "doubtful voters" in Assam's voters' list. They are suspected to be Bangladeshis and facing trial at the foreigners' tribunal. Their names are not on the National Register of Citizens (NRC), whose final list will come out on Saturday.
Ms Mallick said her husband died in ethnic violence in 1983 and their hut was burned down. All that the family has are some certificates and mementos recognising her husband as one of the 855 people who were killed in the protests that led to the Assam Accord, after which the push for the NRC become stronger in 1985.
"My husband went to protest against illegal migrant. He was hacked to death one day while returning home," Ms Mallick told NDTV, pointing at the area near her house where he was killed by suspected illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
"We are D voters and suspected Bangladeshis facing trials. What's the point of this life?" said Ms Mallick as she breaks into tears.
A government certificate that she has proves that Ms Mallick's family had come from what was East Pakistan in 1964 to India as refugees, ahead of the 1971 cut-off for making it to the NRC.
But a document by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) that led the agitation in the 1980s certifying her husband as a "martyr" led to trouble. The AASU got his surname wrong as "Sarkar" instead of "Mallick". This was disastrous.
"In total, 13 members of our family are out of the NRC and this might be because two of us, me and my mother, are D voters. But we were never informed the reason. We raised our claims to the NRC, attended several hearings and now even we are attending tribunal hearing as suspected illegals," said Ms Mallick's son Paritosh, who is also marked as "doubtful voter".
The Supreme Court has said "doubtful voters" and their descendants would not be included in the NRC and their claims kept on hold until the foreigners' tribunal decide if they are foreigners or Indians.
In their village stands a memorial bearing testimony to the sacrifice of Ms Mallick's husband.
"Many genuine people, poor people will be left out due to small mismatches in documents. Those who are D voters or have pending foreigner cases will be kept out. We wanted NRC, but a free and fair NRC," said activist Shantanu Sanyal.
When the final list of the NRC is published on Saturday, it will be a victory of sorts for the families of the people who died in the Assam agitation against illegal migration. However, Ms Mallick said they have to struggle for days at the foreigners' tribunal to prove that they are Indians, despite someone from their family giving his live to drive out illegals.