Assam: Genuine Indians to Get opportunity to Include Names in NRC- Sonowal
Guwahati
The “genuine” Indian citizen if his or her name missing from the citizenship register would get enough opportunities to incorporate their names, said Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal .
“No one should have any apprehensions. If the name of a genuine Indian citizen is missing in the part draft of the NRC, he or she will get proper chance to incorporate it,” Sonowal told PTI.
The chief minister also informed that the govt have received central forces and they are being deployed across the state to ensure peace. No untoward incident will be allowed to take place, he added.
Massive preparations are in place to ensure peace and no one will be allowed to take law in their hands after publication of the first draft of the National Register of Citizens, a list of the state’s citizens, on December 31, the chief minister said.
It must be mention here that a massive exercise to update the NRC is being carried out in Assam following a directive of the Supreme Court in 2005. However, the exercise started as late as 2015 under the Congress regime. It got a major push only after the BJP came to power with illegal
Of the 3.28 crore applications submitted, there was confusion over the inclusion of 29 lakh people who had submitted certificates issued by ‘gram panchayats’ as proof of identity, after a Gauhati High Court order in February had deemed ‘panchayat’ certificates invalid, the officials said.
The Supreme Court set aside the high court order and upheld the validity of the certificates as identity proof if they were followed up with proper verification. The apex court also asked authorities to stick to the original deadline for the publication of the draft NRC and include names of those whose claims were verified.
The NRC was last updated in Assam way back in 1951. Then, it had recorded 80 lakh citizens in the state. Since then, the process of identification of illegal immigrants in Assam has been debated and become a contentious issue in the state’s politics.
A six-year agitation demanding identification and deportation of illegal immigrants was launched by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) in 1979. It culminated with the signing of the Assam Accord on August 15, 1985 in the presence of then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.