The NRC culprits

The filing of an FIR by the present State Coordinator of NRC against the former State Coordinator of NRC with the Superintendent of Police, CID, and seeking that a case should be registered against the former officer, has finally taken the authenticity of Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC) to a very doubtful level. While several allegations of large-scale irregularities in the preparation process of the NRC had been earlier levelled against the former NRC State Coordinator, it is for the first time that the present head of the NRC project has approached the police for registering a case and carrying out an investigation. It is very significant to note that the present NRC State Coordinator has levelled charges of a very serious nature against his predecessor, an IAS officer of the Assam cadre who had left the State immediately after publication of the final NRC. As has been already reported in the media, the present NRC State Coordinator has in his FIR alleged that his predecessor in the NRC project had "intentionally avoided the mandatory quality check by ordering use of a software which prevented quality check and facilitated entry of names of ineligible person into the NRC, which can be seen as an anti-national act affecting the national security." The present NRC State Coordinator has also gone to the extent of complaining that his predecessor had, in connivance with some officers and data entry operators, allegedly indulged in such acts during preparation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam which amounted to "anti-national activities". The present NRC State Coordinator, who, too, was initially an officer involved in the NRC project, was, however, reportedly sidelined by the previous NRC State Coordinator in a systematic manner, for reasons best known only to the previous officer. In the FIR, the present NRC State Coordinator has given a few examples of the alleged anomalies and irregularities, because of which a large number of persons with doubtful antecedents and who are suspected to be illegal migrants of Bangladesh or East Pakistan origin, were able to enlist their names in the NRC. It is now an open secret that while a large number of such persons had submitted documents obtained through fraudulent means, those were accepted at the insistence of the former NRC State Coordinator in order to help them get enrolled in the NRC. Fortunately, the BJP-led government had got some scent of the fraud and hence has not accepted the NRC so far. All patriotic people now definitely should strongly demand that a fair investigation be conducted into the irregularities in preparation of the NRC under the supervision of the previous State Coordinator, which definitely amount to anti-national activities. No culprit should be allowed to go scot-free in such a serious matter which is related to the overall integrity and security of the country on one hand and the identity and survival of the indigenous communities of Assam on the other hand.