NRC publishes the status of all Assam applicants
The National Register of Citizens (NRC) authority yesterday published the individual status of all the 3.3 crore people of Indian state of Assam who had applied for inclusion in the updated citizens’ registry when the exercise began five years ago.
The list – which has the names of those who have been accepted as citizens, those who have been rejected and those whose appeals are pending – was uploaded on the official NRC site less than a fortnight after 19.07 lakh people were excluded from the final NRC released on August 31.
One, however, has to key in the ARN, or application receipt number, to view his or her citizenship status or that of the members of his or her family. Each applicant was provided a unique ARN generated after application for the NRC updating exercise.
NRC State Coordinator for Assam Prateek Hajela had in a statement explained the difference between the final NRC lists released 14 days apart.
“Whereas the final NRC publication on August 31, 2019, consisted only of supplementary lists, queries were received about publication of results of all members of a family irrespective of their involvement in the Claims and Objections process. The results for the complete family will be available only for display online,” he said a few days ago.
“Queries were also received from the public about the issue of certified copies of rejection from final NRC… The process of collection of the orders passed by the NRC officers is being carried out to enable early availability of the same to the public to file appeals,” he added.
Meanwhile, about 30 organisations representing various indigenous organisations, including the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), have demanded that the indigenous people excluded from the final NRC be included without forcing them to approach Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) to establish their citizenship.
Rights groups and tribal organisations in Assam have claimed that at least 2 lakh indigenous people have been excluded from the NRC allegedly for lack of proper documents. Among the NRC-excluded are Koch-Rajbongshi, Karbi, Reang and Bodo tribes. Many non-tribal Assamese people have also found themselves on the rejection list. Over 1 lakh Gurkhas are also believed to be left out of NRC.
“The Supreme Court-monitored NRC was not error-free. The names of indigenous people have been excluded while many foreigners have been included. The NRC must be free of illegal migrants and the indigenous should not be made to go through FT as they cannot be foreigners by any definition of the term,” AASU advisor Samujjal Bhattacharyya said.
Resentment against illegal immigrants has simmered for years in Assam, one of India’s poorest states, with residents blaming outsiders for stealing their jobs and land.
Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which also runs Assam, say the NRC process reflects its aim to serve only its co-religionists.
In January, India’s lower house passed legislation that stands to grant citizenship to people who moved to India from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan as recently as six years ago -- but not if they are Muslim.
Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, Modi’s right-hand-man, has called for the ejection of “termites” and said before the BJP’s thumping re-election victory in May that it would “run a countrywide campaign to send back the infiltrators”.
A team of United Nations experts, including the special rapporteur for freedom of religion or belief, said in July that the NRC could “exacerbate the xenophobic climate while fueling religious intolerance and discrimination in the country.”
The process to update the register began following an Indian Supreme Court order in 2013, with the state’s nearly 33 million people having to prove that they were Indian nationals prior to March 24, 1971.
The Indian Home Ministry said last week that those who will be excluded from the NRC would not automatically become foreigners and “every individual left out can appeal to the Foreigners’ Tribunals”.
The 1.9 million people who are left off the final NRC register will have 120 days to appeal at special Foreigners Tribunals, reports AFP.
The Indian government said it will also help the poor among the excluded with legal assistance to fight their cases. India says it has set up 100 Foreigners’ Tribunals to hear disputed cases. The number will be increased considerably to hear the huge number of cases.
If one loses the case in the tribunal, the person can approach the High Court and then the Supreme Court and none will be sent to detention centres until all legal options are exhausted, reports our New Delhi correspondent citing Indian government sources.
It is unclear what will happen to those ultimately branded as foreigners because India has no treaty with Bangladesh to deport them.
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