Skip to main content

NRC omissions raise fear in Assam


By : Rahul Karmakar




June 30 is deadline for final draft

Of Assam’s 14 MPs, All India United Democratic Front chief Badruddin Ajmal and his brother Sirajuddin Ajmal did not figure in the first draft of the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) published on December 31 last year.

Also missing from the first draft containing 19 million names were at least 15 of Assam’s 126 MLAs. They included Badruddin Ajmal’s son Abdur Rahim Ajmal, who represents the AIUDF, perceived to be a pro-minority party, from the Jamunamukh constituency.

Off the list too were Boby Bhuyan Baruah, wife of separatist Paresh Baruah, who has been operating from neighbouring countries, including China, for three decades now, and their sons Ankur and Akash. Mr. Baruah leads the United National Front of Asom-Independent.

The MPs and MLAs — including the BJP’s Shiladitya Dev and Ashwini Rai Sarkar — and relatives of extremist leaders would rather wait for the final draft of the Supreme Court-monitored NRC to be out by the June 30 deadline. “The first list did not have my name despite my being an MLA for one term and an MP for two. The doors of the SC are open in case the name does not show up,” the AIUDF chief said a few days ago.

The leaders are not worried. But the likes of Moinal Islam, a mason from near Chhaygaon, west of Guwahati, who has been at a loss to explain why his father adds ‘Sheikh’ to his name while he doesn’t, and Subhas Saha of western Assam’s Dhubri town, half of whose family were excluded from the first draft despite having lived there for almost a century, are worried by speculation that up to four million people — mostly Bengali Hindus and Muslims — would become stateless after June 30.

Misplaced fears: official

“These are misplaced fears. We cannot quantify at this moment, but the number of people who might get left out would be 50,000 at most. Even then, they will get an opportunity to prove their citizenship through claims and objections,” Prateek Hajela, State NRC Coordinator, told The Hindu .

About 2,500 NRC centres across the State would continue to handle claims and objections before being wound up. A few centres would remain to continue the process of enlisting children of those who find their names in the updated NRC.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Courtesy: The Hindu
For original write-up refer to the following link
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/nrc-omissions-raise-fear-in-assam/article24249247.ece


Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Unending Conundrum: The Story of Citizens/Foreigners between Politics and the Law in Assam

Date:  May 31, 2018 Author:  PangSau 0  Comments Binayak Dutta Politics in Assam has for long been dominated by contestations over belongingness and citizenship. Seventy years since the transfer of power and well into the twenty first century, the tenor and the dominant theme of politics is no different when C.S. Mullan, the Census superintendent for Assam for the Census of 1931 raised an alarm over the “army corps of the invaders” (Census:1931:49) invading Assam from East Bengal. The raging debate that was ignited in the last century has continued unabated in north-east India ever since with mile-stones such as the Assam Movement and now the construction of the National register of Citizens for Assam along the way. A debate that was initiated in the official and administrative domains has today entered the common place and the current exercise over the NRC with more and more people affected by the process in diverse ways. If I could start with the personal ...
Read more

A ‘god-sent’ opportunity?

By : SUJIT CHAUDHURI IN the wake of the Partition Assam lost one of her districts to Pakistan. Mountbatten’s partition-plan announced on 3 June 1947, provided inter-alia for a referendum to be held in the Sylhet district of Assam to decide whether it should remain a part of the Indian province of Assam or go to East Pakistan. The Sylhet referendum was held on 6 July 1947 and the result went in favour of a merger with Pakistan. Assam thus lost a wealthy district causing serious loss of revenue. But the Assamese people in general greeted this loss and the Assam press projected it as a gain. This attitude, somewhat unusual in the context of the national aspiration of the period, has its origins in what can be called the long-cherished quest of the Assamese – carving out a homogenous province for themselves. The Assamese perceived the partition of 1947 as a god-sent opportunity to attain that goal. In fact, the Assamese Congress leaders were sowing the seeds for subsequent man...
Read more

The NRC is a Mess

"Creating an ‘indigenous’ category is only going to speed up the NRC verification process" On March 27 the Hindustan Times carried an article titled “In Assam, rape and murder of minor takes a ‘Bangladeshi’ turn”. The article pertained to the brutal rape of a minor, the accused had allegedly tried to burn the victim to death. The child died due to the burns. What became an issue was not just the brutality of the act, but also the fact that all the three accused were Muslims. This then has coloured the discourse on the crime. The general public appears to have already decided the citizenship of the three accused. Though the issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh has been a long-standing issue in Assam, the general view tends to be that all those who speak ‘Bengali’ fall within this category. If the person is a Muslim, the suspicion is only greater. The Anup Chetia led "Khilonjia Joutha Mancha" (Indigenous People’s Forum) had in February declaredthat a...
Read more