NRC must be a perfect citizenship determining document: AASU

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, July 5: Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s latest directive to the NRC (National Register of Citizens) authorities to delete names of nearly 1.5 lakh applicants whose names were erroneously enrolled in the partial draft NRC, the All Assam Students’ Union has advocated for publication of a perfect NRC with names of only genuine Indians.

The influential students’ organization which led the historic anti-foreigners movement has also appealed to the government employees involved in updating the NRC to be extra vigilant to successfully foil any attempt of illegal foreigners to enroll their names in the updated NRC.

Talking to The Sentinel on Thursday, AASU general secretary Lurin Jyoti Gogoi said: “The NRC must be hundred per cent error free. Since the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985, it has taken quite a long period for the NRC to finally take shape. Since work is still on, the personnel carrying out the update process must carry out their work fearlessly and in such a careful manner so that the chances of erroneous inclusion or deletion of names are totally negated. They must understand that the final NRC will be the primary security shield for the Assamese people. Moreover, it would also be the means to sieve out the foreigners.”

It may be mentioned that more than 50,000 government employees are involved in the NRC update process.

The Supreme Court recently extended the deadline to publish the final draft of Assam NRC to 30 July. The bench gave the extension after the Centre and the state NRC coordinator agreed to publish it within the new 30 July deadline. The bench of justices Ranjan Gogoi and RF Nariman considered the report of Assam NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela and extended the deadline.

Last week, Hajela had said it would not be possible to release the complete draft of the NRC on 30 June because of the floods in Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi districts in the Barak Valley as well as in parts of Karbi Anglong and Hojai.