No fil decision on Hindu refugees yet, says Hazela

NRC UPDATE EXERCISE

NRC State Coorditor allays misgivings on Origil Inhabitants status

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, Aug 1: No person belonging to a specific community of the State will be identified as an origil inhabitant in the updated tiol Registrar of Citizen (NRC) unless the local registrar is satisfied with his explation.

Addressing a press conference at Dispur today, State NRC Coorditor Prateek Hajela said, “Certain misgivings seem to have been developing amongst some persons about the provision of ‘Origil Inhabitant’ identification under NRC updation. In this regard, we want say that the process of updating of NRC is being carried out on the basis of transparent modalities and statutory provisions.”  

“Origil Inhabitants is not a special status so far as updation of NRC is concerned, and does not give out any preferential or differential treatment to any NRC applicant,” Hajela said.

He, however, said that as the law provides for the Origil Inhabitants to be included in NRC, the provision is being implemented to ensure that no origil inhabitant of the State is deprived of this legal protection and is excluded from NRC due to uvailability of documents.

“No genuine individual will be excluded from NRC. But no person based on a particular community will be treated as origil inhabitant. Only an individual will be treated as origil inhabitant, not a community. The local registrar will decide whether the person is origil inhabitant. If the local registrar is satisfied with the explation of the individual concerned, he will be treated as origil inhabitant. However, the respective Circle Officer and DC will have to certify him,” Hajela pointed out.

Hajela said 5.25 lakh documents have been found from outside the State.

A total of 2.68 lakh documents have been sent out for verification of which only 5,029 verified documents have been received.

Out of 64,547 documents sent for verification to West Bengal, NRC office has so far received only 30 verified documents. Similarly, out of 49,629 documents, only 542 have been received from galand.  From Meghalaya, 493 documents out of 34,438 have been received. The number of verified documents received from Tripura is 1,049 out of 25,008, which is highest among all states. Of the 1,943 documents sent for verification to Mizoram, no documents have been received so far. Likewise from Bihar, no verified document has reached NRC office so far.

Hajela informed that 97 per cent works of filed verification have been completed.  “We have received 6.63 crore documents, of which the office verification of 4.5 crore documents have been completed. The total number of NRC applicants is 68.23 lakh,” he said.

Hajela further said that a total 137 cases have been registered for submission of fake documents to get mes enrolled in the updated register.  

Regarding the publication of draft NRC, he said that the status of the process will be informed to the Supreme Court and as per the directive of the apex court, the draft NRC will be published.

About the inclusion of D voters in NRC, Hajela said that mes of such individuals will be included in the NRC, if the Foreigners Tribuls declare them as Indian citizens.

While there are 1,36,448 ‘D’ voters in Assam at present, the Foreigners Tribuls have so far declared 11,064 individuals as foreigners.

Regarding the Central government has not taken any fil decision on granting citizenship to minority refugees coming from Bangladesh, Hazela clarified that as of now, their mes will not be included in the NRC.   

“The NRC updating process is being monitored by the Supreme Court and we are going by the apex court’s instructions. So far, we have not received any instructions from the apex court to include the mes of Hindu Bangladeshis in the NRC. The SC order in this regard only said that the Hindu Bangladeshis who have entered India due to religious persecution should not be deported,” Hajela said.