‘Foreigner’ named in NMC first draft

The name of a person who was earlier declared a foreigner by a court has been enlisted in the first draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) published by the Assam government on January 1.

The NRC is being updated in the northeastern state to weed out illegal immigrants. In the first list, more than 1.9 crore people of the 3.29 crore applicants were recognised as legal citizens of India. Ali Ahmed is among them.

Ahmed was declared an illegal immigrant by a foreigners tribunal in Sivasagar district in 2011, a verdict which was also later upheld by the Gauhati high court.

The anomaly came to the light after Ahmed moved a review petition in the high court challenging the earlier order citing the inclusion of his name in the draft list.

Prateek Hajela, the state coordinator of the NRC said the goof up occurred due to “incomplete information” given by the border branch of the Assam Police.

To ensure that no declared foreigners make it to the NRC list unless they are cleared by the higher courts, the border branch had given the NRC authorities a list of all declared foreigners, along with their addresses. But in Ahmed’s case there was a mismatch in the address, which led to the oversight, the NRC authorities said. SADIQ NAQVI

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