State National Register of Citizens Authority under Cyber Attack

Negative campaign reeks of conspiracy, authority informs Assam Police of design

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, July 17: With barely 12 days to go for the publication of its complete draft, NRC is surely nearing the end of its crisis-ridden journey. However, since Monday last the NRC authority has been under attack in the form of a massive false campaign against the ongoing NRC update. The sudden false campaign against the NRC update reeks of a conspiracy by some vested interests.

All of a sudden, NRC Updation Assam, the official twitter handle of the office of the State NRC Coordinator, has received over one lakh comments (posts) mostly against the NRC update process in the State from Monday. The flow of negative comments against NRC is so huge that it is not possible on the part of the NRC authority to respond to each and every comment. Yet the State NRC authority has responded to a number of the comments. Some of those who have sent posts squarely targeted State NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela. One of such posts reads: “Heal the dark side of the humanity and legality:stop the genocide. We’re no more in the Medieval Age. Prateek Hajela you can behave better than that. The WORLD is watching.”

The massive false campaign against NRC update has sprung up all of a sudden since Monday. Significantly, most of the account holders seem to be people from abroad. All these lend credence to the conspiracy angle. Being under such a massive cyber attack all of a sudden, the State NRC authority has let the Assam Police know of the development.

Talking to The Sentinel on Tuesday, State NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela said: “We’ve been receiving a large number of negative comments against NRC update since Monday. Even I’ve been targeted in some of the comments. We’ve let the Assam Police know all these. Time and again we’ve made it clear that names of all genuine Indians residing in Assam will appear in the NRC. We’re not going to do injustice to any genuine Indian residing in Assam. However, the false propaganda is at its peak now. People shouldn’t be misled by any such false propaganda.”

The reality is that only the people of Assam are well aware of what NRC exactly is. This is because NRC was prepared only in Assam in 1951, and in no other States in India. The NRC of 1951 is being updated in the State now in accordance with the directive of the Supreme Court of India. The process of NRC update is also being done under the supervision of the apex court. Barring the conscious citizens in the neighbouring States of Assam, the rest of India is not aware of what NRC exactly is. When awareness on NRC is so dismal in the country, how come people from abroad are well aware of NRC and make comments to derail the process? Doesn’t this lend credence to the conspiracy theory?

Earlier, such a false campaign had been propagated by a web portal.