On a day when the additional draft exclusion list of National Register of Citizens (NRC) was published in Assam, a girl in Darrang district committed suicide for failing to find her name in the list.
Relatives claimed that 13-year-old Noor Nahar Begum, whose name did not appear in the draft NRC published in 2018 under the direct supervision of the Supreme Court, was expecting that her name would appear in the NRC for sure.
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However, without knowing that the list published on Wednesday is an additional draft exclusion list and not the final NRC, Noor Nahar hanged herself with the dupatta she was wearing.
The girl was a daughter of Abdul Kalam of Rowmari village under Shyampur police station in Dalgaon Revenue Circle of Darrang district.
Also read: Assam: Final NRC taking shape; additional draft exclusion list published
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“She did not know that non-inclusion of her name in the additional draft exclusion list of NRC indicates that her name will be included in the final NRC,” the relatives claimed adding that there has been a lot of confusion among the people about the NRC update process.
Also read: There may be mistakes in NRC update process: Assam Governor
“Her father, Abdul Kalam, went to the nearest NRC Seva Kendra today to check the name of his daughter. After failing to find Noor Nahar’s name in the additional list today, Kalam informed this to her daughter over phone and she committed suicide by hanging herself,” said one of the relatives.
“The Assam government is responsible for the incident that took place today. There was not much publicity about the additional draft exclusion list, which was published today. The girl seemed to have assumed this to be the final NRC and decided to take the extreme step after not finding her name there,” said Abdul Hai, secretary of the local unit of the All Assam Minority Students’ Union (AAMSU).
Darrang SP Amrit Bhuyan, however, said the suicide has no link with the NRC.
“There is a report of a girl committing suicide from Roumari Chapori area. However, the suicide is not related to the NRC. There must be some other reasons behind the incident. We are investigating into the matter,” he said.
The NRC authority on Wednesday published an additional draft exclusion list of the NRC consisting names of 102,462 persons, whose names were included in the draft NRC published on July 30 last year but subsequently they were found ineligible due to various reasons.
“We were not aware that the list published today is different from the earlier draft lists and the final NRC will be published only on July 31, 2019,” added another family member.
The family members and the locals ruled out any other possible reason for the girl’s suicide.