Former Assam minister and legislator for more than 30 years Gautam Roy was served a notice challenging his inclusion in the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) on May 14 and asked to appear before at the NRC service centre in Hailakandi the following day.
Mr Roy and his six-year-old grandson were served a notice by one Johirul Ali Choudhury of Hailakandi.
“I could not attend the hearing was I was in New Delhi. I reached Hailakandi on Thursday and applied for fixing another date,” Mr Roy said, adding that the notice underlined how NRC has become an excuse to harass genuine citizens.
Of around three lakh objections that the NRC centres received, more than 2.5 lakh were filed on December 31, 2018, the last day for filing claims and objections. But when the hearings began, none of the objectors turned up, as required by the procedure set up by the Centre.
Organisations such as the All Assam Minority Students’ Union and All Assam Bengali Youth Students’ Federation have been demanding that objections be dismissed in the absence of the objectors at the hearings.