With just few hours left for publication of the draft NRC, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Sunday said ‘genuine’ Indians missing from the citizenship register would get enough opportunities to incorporate their names.
“There is no reason to worry if any genuine Indian citizen’s name is excluded from the draft NRC. It is no possible to include everyone’s name in the first draft,” Chief Minister told reporters here.
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The Chief Minister said action would be taken if anyone is found involved in spreading rumour about NRC.
“We are keeping strict on social media so that no can spread rumour over NRC,” he said.
Massive preparations are in place to ensure peace and no one will be allowed to take law in their hands after publication of the first draft of the NRC, Sonowal said. The draft NRC would be published in the mid-night on Sunday.
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The first draft of updated NRC will be published tonight. I assure all support from the Government regarding any issue and reiterate that no bonafide Indian citizen will be left out of this process. pic.twitter.com/nYLFFdjci2
— Sarbananda Sonowal (@sarbanandsonwal) December 31, 2017
Earlier, Sonowal had said 40,000 government officials, including deputy commissioners of the districts, sub divisional officers and circle officers, are involved in the massive exercise which has been going on in 6,500 NRC centres.
Of the 3.28 crore applications submitted, there was confusion over the inclusion of 29 lakh people who had submitted certificates issued by ‘gram panchayats’ as proof of identity, after a Gauhati High Court order in February had deemed ‘panchayat’ certificates invalid, the officials said.
The Supreme Court set aside the high court order and upheld the validity of the certificates as identity proof if they were followed up with proper verification.
The apex court also asked authorities to stick to the original deadline for the publication of the draft NRC and include names of those whose claims were verified.
The NRC was last updated in Assam way back in 1951. Then, it had recorded 80 lakh citizens in the state. Since then, the process of identification of illegal immigrants in Assam has been debated and become a contentious issue in the state’s politics.