NRC included people called for re-verification

GUWAHATI: The NRC authorities have summoned hundreds of people, whose names have already been included in the final draft NRC Assam, for ‘re-verification’ of their citizenship documents at various centres across the state.
The notices for re-verification have been served by local registrars of citizenship registration, which have reached the people’s hands on Saturday and Sunday.Most of the people have been asked to report to the re-verification centres mentioned in the summon notices on Monday. Several of these people have been asked to report at centres in another district.
The BJP-led Assam government on Thursday questioning the veracity of the NRC— being updated by the Registrar General of India under the apex court’s supervision — in the assembly saying that re-verification of draft NRC data before the final on is published, on August 31, was necessary because it suspects that names of several foreigners have been included and names of Indians have been left in the draft NRC.
“According to data, the percentage of exclusion in the draft NRC (published last year) in the border districts of South Salmara (7.22), Dhubri (8.26%) and Karimganj (7.67%) is much lower than the state average of 12.15% ... But the percentage of exclusion in tribal-majority Karbi Anglong is much higher, at 14.31%, and in Tinsukia district in upper Assam, where sons of the soil have been living for ages, the percentage of exclusion is as high as 13.25%,” Assam parliamentary affairs minister Chandra Mohan Patowary had said in the House in a reply to a Zero Hour notice.
He had added, “The data justifies fears of rampant misuse of legacy data in border districts like South Salmara and Dhubri. Such startling scenarios will come up if the data of exclusions and the data of persons allegedly re-verified is juxtaposed for each revenue circle in remaining districts of the state.”
There is no statement from the NRC authorities on this exercise. NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela had last month told Supreme Court that 27% incidental re-verification has been already completed.
The BJP government’s contention has been that an error-free NRC is not possible without a sample re-verification of citizenship claims of 20% of the applicants in districts bordering Bangladesh and 10% in the other districts of Assam. The Supreme Court has, however, turned down the joint appeal made by the Centre and the Assam government to initiate a re-verification drive on the basis of a report by NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela, who had said 27% “incidental re-verification” had already been done during the claims and objections process.
Dismissing Hajela’s report, Patowary said, “Hajela’s claims that 27% incidental re-verification has been completed has no merit because he did not issue any notification regarding this after taking the people of Assam into confidence.”
The Brahmaputra Valley Civil Society (BVCS) alleged that thousands of Muslim families across Assam, which have already made it to NRC, received the notices. “They have been given just little time to depose in places which are 400 km away. They have been asked to come with all their family members,” BVCS leader and senior Gauhati High Court lawyer, Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury, told journalists on Sunday.
“We suspect that Prateek Hajela has been scared into issuing the fresh notices or some forces are doing this. When he himself had told the Supreme Court recently that re-verification of documents has been already done covering 27 per cent of the applicants, under whose direction the fresh notices were being served to people,” Choudhury asked.