It will not be the end of the road for those left out of the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) being updated in Assam, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said on Wednesday.
The final draft of the Supreme Court-monitored NRC is scheduled to be published by June 30. Of the 32.9 million applicants, the names of 19 million figured in the first draft published on December 31, 2017.
“A section is trying to create a fear psychosis about the NRC. There is no need to worry if some people are left out of the final draft. They will get an opportunity to be enlisted later,” Mr. Sonowal said.
Officials engaged in the NRC exercise said a person not figuring in the final draft would not automatically become a foreigner. Rules say that after publication of the final draft, any Indian citizen finding his or her name missing from the list would have 30 days’ time to raise the issue with the local registrar.
About 2,500 officers from different departments have been appointed local registrars. If not satisfied with the verdict of a local registrar, a person filing claims can approach the district registrar, who is the deputy commissioner of a district. Beyond the district registrar, an unsatisfied person can go to any of 100 Foreigners’ Tribunal in Assam.
Assam NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela said the names of those who came to Assam after March 24, 1971 – cut-off date for detection and deportation of illegal migrants as per the Assam Accord of 1983 – will not be included in the updated NRC.
“Those who have proof of residence or linkage to those settled before March 24, 1971 will be included. But people who have cases pending with the Foreigners’ Tribunals will not be included until they are cleared. The NRC centres have also been instructed to verify the documents of relatives of siblings of those marked by the Foreigners’ Tribunals,” Mr. Hajela told The Hindu.
The NRC coordinator also played down fears that tens of thousands of religious and linguistic minorities would be omitted from the NRC. “Fancy figures are being cited, creating confusion and misinformation. We will get to know the exact figure only after the final draft,” he said.
NRC officials, however, said about 50,000 people are likely to be excluded from the NRC. The figure has been derived from some 90,000 people the Foreigners’ Tribunals have declared as foreigners. Of these, 15,000 ‘registered foreigners’ who had come to the Assam primarily from Bangladesh between 1966 and March 1971 will make it to the NRC as per constitutional provisions.
A few of the remaining 75,000 have died over the years while 4,288 have been identified.
March to Raj Bhavan
Members of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and Sadou Asom Karmachari Parishad (State employees’ union) marched to the Raj Bhavan here on Wednesday afternoon to submit a memorandum seeking the withdrawal of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill of 2016.
“The BJP-led government has not made its stand clear and has unnecessarily linked it to the NRC exercise. There cannot be any date of acceptance of refugees or migrants from any country, irrespective of religion, other than that prescribed by the Assam Accord, which is also the cut-off date for NRC,” AASU general secretary Lurin Jyoti Gogoi said.