NRC Has Both Positive And Sad Sides: Himanta Biswa Sarma

NRC Has Both Positive And Sad Sides: Himanta Biswa Sarma

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: State Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma sees both positive and sad sides in the NRC published on August 31, 2019. According to him, many technical faults and lacunae in the NRC update process have marred its positive sides and made it a document ‘not up to the expectations’ of the people in the State.

Talking to The Sentinel, Sarma said, “Let’s talk positive first. We’ve got an updated NRC. It’s going to act as a deterrent to further infiltration. It’ll help us in any future NRC update exercise. It can be taken as the base. Another positive side of this exercise is that it has identified over 19 lakh people as ineligible for inclusion in the NRC. If the foreigners tribunals declare 50 per cent of these people as Indians, over 9 lakh people will be declared as foreigners. And this will justify people’s apprehension that more foreigners are in Assam.”

Sarma added, “On the sad side, there’s the rejection of refugees’ certificates issued prior to 1971 by the NRC authority. This has led to the tagging of a large number of Hindu Bengalis, Koch Rajbongshis and Buddhists as ineligible for inclusion in the NRC. This apart, many birth certificates and legacy data have been forged or manipulated. The police have detected many such cases and found prima facie evidences after investigation. Such incidents bear testimony to forgery and manipulation of vital NRC documents.”

Sarma further said, “We said that while a few applicants were excluded from the NRC in the bordering districts, 15-20 per cent applicants were excluded from districts like Karbi Anglong. The then Assam Governor SK Sinha had sent a report to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that the rise in population in the bordering districts of Assam due to influx was alarming. The decision to update the NRC was taken mainly based on the report from the former Governor. However, the final NRC has painted the reverse picture.”

Spelling out the future course of action on NRC, Sarma said: “We appealed to the Supreme Court for 20 per cent re-verification of documents in the bordering districts and 10 per cent in other districts. However, the apex court rejected our plea when State NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela told the bench that already 27 per cent re-verification of documents had been done. Had there been really 27 per cent re-verification, the picture would have been different. We’re going to appeal to the Supreme Court of India for re-verification of NRC documents.”

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