Various organisations in Assam welcomed the Supreme Court’s order extending the deadline for publishing the final NRC to August 31 and turning down the request of the Centre and Assam government to conduct 20% sample re-verification of listed names in the districts bordering Bangladesh and 10% in the other districts on Tuesday.
In a joint statement, the Assam State Jamiat and All-Assam Minority Students’ Union (AAMSU) said that the SC foiled a conspiracy of the BJP to delay the publication of the NRC.
“People have undergone a lot of misery in proving their citizenship by being forced to visit NRC service centres in faraway places. Re-verification would have made these people suffer again,” AAMSU president Rezaul Karim Sarkar said.
“The extension is appreciated since people in flood-affected areas could not go to the NRC centres to settle claims and verify documents. Besides, NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela had said he would publish the final list in two phases if time was not extended. It is good that with a month’s time, the final NRC will be published at one go,” State Jamiat president Maulana Mustaq Anfar said.
Dipanka Kumar Nath, president of All-Assam Students’ Union, said they trusted the Supreme Court, which has been monitoring the NRC exercise, to take steps for ensuring an error-free NRC. We respect the apex court’s decision and believe it will help keep genuine citizens in and illegal migrants out.” He said the Centre and State’s plea for re-verification was redundant as more than 20% reverification had been done during the past few months.
The Assam Public Works, an NGO that had filed a petition seeking 100% re-verification said what mattered was the satisfaction of the court about the NRC groundwork.
“The NRC State Coordinator satisfied the court that they have already done 28% reverification of the applicants during the process of claims and objections and that the name of not a single immigrant has been included in the draft. The court is happy that no Bangladeshi figures in the NRC,” the NGO’s president Aabhijeet Sarma said.
