The United Nations (UN) refugee agency is in talks with India regarding the citizenship issue of those left out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.
1.9 million people were left out of the final NRC published on August 31.
The agency on Wednesday said those left out from the final NRC are “potentially stateless”.
“Majority of those who could become stateless are Muslims,” the agency said.
“We have expressed concern that this exercise of verification of nationality may result in statelessness for some of the people,” said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
“The Indian government has assured us that there is due process being put in place for these people to make recourse if their initial response was negative in terms of nationality,” Grandi added.
“We need to see what happens at the end of this process and whether there will be people still exposed to statelessness,” Grandi further said.
“That’s a concern that we have at the moment,” he added.
Those excluded from the final NRC have been given a time frame of 120 days to prove their Indian citizenship at the Foreigners’ Tribunals.
If declared foreigners by FTs, then they can appeal to higher courts.