Assam Government focuses on fates of people missing NRC

Assam Government focuses on fates of people missing NRC

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, July 12: With the Supreme Court’s deadline for publication of the complete draft NRC fast approaching, the BJP-led Government at Dispur has started its deliberation on fates of those whose names will not be enrolled in the NRC.

A crucial meeting of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on NRC update and Clause-VI of Assam Accord held at State Secretariat here on Thursday tried to explore the possible status of those whose names will not figure in the NRC. The meeting under the chair of Finance & PWD Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was attended by cabinet minister Ranjit Dutta, State NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela and senior officials of the Home and Assam Accord Implementation department.

The meeting decided to wait for a directive from the Supreme Court on the possible status of people who have failed to enroll their names in NRC. The Cabinet sub-committee will, however, hold its next meeting on July 23 to discuss the issue in details.

The complete draft NRC will not include the names of more than three lakh people owing to a number of reasons. Altogether 1,79,935 persons and their descendants’ names would also be excluded as ‘suspected citizens’. Their cases are subjudice in different Foreigners Tribunals in Assam. Moreover, the names of about 1.25 lakh of doubtful voters (and their descendents) tagged as ‘D’ voters by the Election Commission of India (ECI) would also be excluded. The Supreme Court and the Gauhati High Court gave their nod to the NRC authorities in this regard.

This is besides the approximately 1.50 lakh people whose names erroneously appeared in the first part NRC draft and which are going to be excluded from the complete draft NRC to be published on July 30 this year. The Supreme Court recently gave the nod to the NRC authorities to exclude these 1.50 lakh names.

The NRC is being updated taking March 25, 1971 as the cut-off date as per the tripartite agreement signed among the Centre, State Government and All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) way back on May 5, 2005. It is expected that after updating the NRC, it will become easier to detect illegal Bangladeshi migrants in Assam who had sneaked into the state after March 25, 1971 as per the Assam Accord signed on August 15, 1985 as culmination of the Assam Agitation against illegal migrants in the State.

The partial draft NRC was published on the expiry of December 31 midnight in 2017 by including the names of 1.90 crore applicants. Altogether 3.29 crore people had applied to enroll their names in the update NRC. The NRC 1951 is being updated in the State under the supervision of the Supreme Court to solve the vexed illegal foreigners’ problem.

The cabinet sub-committee also discussed various steps including definition of Assamese to be implemented under the Clause-VI of the Assam Accord.

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