Hasan of Azara locality on the outskirts of Guwahati officially established he is Meer Hasan of Assam and not an illegal immigrant in the state on Sunday.
The exercise to update citizenship records to weed out illegal immigrants in Assam had accepted his credentials as an Indian, The Hindustan Times reported.
The family expects a smooth sailing from here on to the NRC list.
At some point, when NRC officials came on a home visit to gather data on their family tree, someone gave his name as only Hasan and not Meer Hasan. Inevitably, a mismatch occurred with the NRC’s legacy data documents.
The legacy documents include the 1951 NRC and electoral rolls up to midnight of March 24, 1971, the cut-off date according to the Assam Accord.
This mismatch necessitated Hasan to be present at the NRC centre with his two brothers, three sisters, cousins and other relatives.
All of them had to be there to prove they knew each other. The sisters, all married, had to travel to Guwahati from different parts of the state.
“Our family will no longer have to run around proving we are Indian citizens,” the paper quoted Hasan’s cousin Nabiullah as saying.
While one family can breathe easy, the NRC office has its job cut out. It has to verify 4.8 million similar cases of family tree mismatches across the state by May 31, 2018 — the deadline set by the Supreme Court.
Incidentally, the verification hearings in front of NRC’s investigating officers have reunited some families and thrown up emotional roller coasters.
For instance, at Sipon in the state’s Sivasagar district, Bina Arandhara, who became Bina Begum after marriage, met her family after 12 years at a verification centre.
Her family had not approved of her marrying a Muslim, but there was no rancour when they met to get over the data mismatch together.
In February, NRC officials saw a person apologise to his father for having thrown him out of their house 10 years ago.
“The angry father had not declared his son’s name in the family tree, leading to data discrepancy,” said an investigator who saw them patch up.
Yet, not all family tree mismatches are mistakes, according to NRC investigating officers.
During scrutiny, they are coming across individuals who have forged documents or bribed others to use their legacy data in a bid to have their names verified for the list.
An investigating officer in Nagaon spotted several cases in which people declared foreigners or Doubtful Voters (which would keep them out of the NRC list till cases are pending) tried to get through the verification by changing names.