Activists allege bias in Assam’s NRC update process

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By IndiaTomorrow.net

New Delhi, July 14: Activists, journalists and members of civil society groups on Friday has released a fact-finding report on the ongoing issue of National Register of Citizens (NRC) update process in Assam. The fact-finding team found that there is bias against poor Bangla speaking people while registering their names in NRC.

Following the order of the Supreme Court the NRC is being updated since 2015 in Assam. It sets 25 March 1985 as the cut-off date. In 1985, under the leadership of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, an accord was signed by all concerned parties in Assam. This pact is known as Assam Accord of 1985. According to this pact, only those people can be considered as a legitimate citizen who came here till midnight of 24 March 1971. But those who born here after this date and don’t have any proof will need to have a ‘link document’ which should prove that their parents were here in the state before the cut-off date.

The first draft of the NRC was released on 31 December 2017 and the final draft is scheduled to release on 30 July.

In a press conference, senior journalist Amit Sengupta, who was also part of the delegation, said that they spoke across spectrum of the people including lawyers, activists, civil society groups, individuals, and journalist in Guwahati then moved to Golpara district, Barpeta, Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon.

“We travelled in deep interiors also to discover that what actually is happening to the National register of citizen process,” Gupta added.

The delegation also met former Chief Minister Prafulla Mahanta and Tarun Gogoi. The fact-finding was done under the banner of civil rights group United Against Hate.

SR Darapuri, Former Inspector General of Uttar Pradesh Police was also part of the team noted that the state is sitting on the tip of a volcano.

“I, as part of the fact-finding team and being associated with its day-to-day work – from field work to preparation of the report – can say with conformity that Assam is sitting on the tip of a volcano that can erupt if the injustices meted out to Bangla-speaking Muslims and Hindus on the basis of language and religion in the process of updating of National Register of Citizens (NRC) are not checked and stopped in time,” Darapuri warned in the forward section of the report.

“There are complaints that people are not being given a fair chance to defend and prove them as Indian citizen before the Foreigners Tribunal,” he added.

Darapuri said that the concept of D- Voter or doubtful voter has no place in constitution.

“There can be citizens and non-citizens but not doubtful citizens,” he pointed out.

Activist Nadeem Khan termed the issue as Ram temple issue of Assam which politicians are not solving for electoral gain.

“NRC issue is like a Ram Mandir of Assam no one wants to solve it,” Nadeem told media persons.

The whole society is afraid and anxious, he added.

While addressing the press conference Journalist Manisha Bhalla said that this is not an issue of Hindu v/s Muslim but the issue is based on the language. It is the issue of Bengali v/s Assames.

She also narrated the process of registering someone’s name in the NRC.

She said that 3.39 crore people have applied and NRC has given unique code to every applicant. For all these applicants there are about 6.6 crore documents has to be verified. It is very difficult task. NRC has given these documents to the concern departments like Aadhar to UID and school certificates to the school boards for verification. NRC has sent those documents to 79000 offices for verification.

Bhalla explains that women’s condition is more pathetic. Mostly they are uneducated, living below poverty line, have no land and don’t have more documents or their names are misspelled and due to this they suffer a lot. Supreme Court has said that Panchayat certificate should be accepted but some tribunals are accepting it and some not.

NRC has released a list of 16 documents and most of the people have some of them but there are spelling mistakes in names and surname.

Due to document pressure people are committing suicide, Bhalla claims.

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