CONCERNS OVER BID TO ‘DERAIL’ TASK

GUWAHATI:AS Assam prepares for the final draft of the NRC, a section of people from the state have voiced concerns over what they allege was a “malicious misinformation campaign” to derail the process.

“Now that the draft is nearing publication, there is an uproar from certain linguistic and religious bodies from outside the state that the updated NRC will result in catastrophic violence and disorder,” author and social scientist

Hiren Gohain said.

Some people have alleged that sections outside the state are trying to give the process an ‘Assamese vs Bengali’ or ‘Hindu vs Muslim’ colour.

NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela said they are dependent on the chief electoral officer’s (CEO) office and Assam police’s border branch for information on pending cases of D voters.

The state has asked Hajela to develop a centralised database of people who have been through the citizenship verification process which can be accessed by the police, election officials and NRC. “I will start on it once we are done with the (NRC) draft,” Hajela said. Detection of foreigners and identification of D voters are parallel exercises which continue despite the NRC.

CEO Mukesh Chandra Sahu promised to ensure names of those declared citizens are back on the electoral rolls. “We are not responsible for what NRC is doing and I did not develop the software,” he said. A police officer and a deputy commissioner accepted that the lists of citizens marked as D voters were given to the concerned authorities, which means their exclusion from the NRC draft list.

They spoke on condition of anonymity.