GUWAHATI, May 28 - Social activist and academician Basanta Deka today demanded steps to make the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) reflect the fact that there were 50 lakh illegal migrants of Bangladesh origin in Assam in the year 2001. He suggested that there should be a sincere and thorough scrutiny to reject all the claims made with the support of false/forged documents for inclusion of names in the NRC.
The directive of the Supreme Court of India to thoroughly scrutinise all the claims and objections by introducing, if necessary, additional layers of scrutiny, should be honoured in preparing a correct NRC without any names of foreigners, he said.
Talking to this newspaper, Deka, an activist of the six-year-long anti-foreigners Assam agitation, said that in 2001, the Government of India found 50 lakh Bangla nationals illegally staying in Assam and this figure was placed by it before the Parliament in 2004. Assuming a natural decadal growth of 20 per cent, this figure should easily cross 60 lakh by now, he said.
As these Bangla nationals illegally migrated to Assam after March 24, 1971, they cannot possess any legally valid document belonging to the pre-1971 period, to claim themselves to be genuine Indian citizens. They cannot submit any legacy data or linkage to establish their presence here since the pre-1971 period. If they have submitted any document of pre-1971 period, it must have been false or forged.
Persons submitting false/forged documents were excluded from the final draft of the NRC. The figure of such people stood at around 40 lakh. It is understood that out of these people, around three lakh are indigenous people of the State and citizens from other parts of the country.
Therefore, of the remaining 37 lakh of these people, those 34 lakh, who have now made claims for inclusion of their names in the NRC, are neither indigenous people, nor citizens from other parts of the country. The documents they have submitted to buttress their claims of living in the State since the pre-1971 period, cannot be believed to be the genuine ones. Naturally, it is believed that all their claims are backed by false/forged documents.
These people are helped to obtain all such documents by some people coming from outside Assam. Therefore, any sincere and thorough scrutiny is bound to reject almost all the claims submitted by these people with the support of false/forged documents, said Deka.
He further said the State Coordinator for updating the NRC has been authorised to exercise administrative control over the officials engaged in updating the NRC in consultation with the Registrar General of India. Moreover, the officials engaged in the process have the power to examine the documents suo motu and to take the correct decision in this regard, Deka said.
