GUWAHATI, July 10 - Some vested interest circles are hatching conspiracies to frustrate the entire process of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC). For the purpose of defeating the cause of the autochthonous peoples of the State, these circles are now making the authorities concerned to effect a rift among the indigenous peoples themselves by manipulating the data concerning the citizenship of a section of the indigenous peoples on religious and ethnic lines, said president of the Sadou Deshi Janagosthiya Samsad, advocate AAM Inamul Haque.
Haque, also a former coordinator of the All Assam Students' Union's (AASU�s) International Border Committee, alleged while speaking to this newspaper, that with the tacit approval of some political leaders, these circles are now mustering courage to belittle the national aspiration of the indigenous peoples concerning the NRC.
The latest example of such a diabolic design of these circles is the conspiracy they have hatched to create confusion on the identity of the people belonging to the Deshi Janagosthiya community. The people belonging to the Deshi Janagosthiya community of the State, who embraced Islam several centuries back, are in fact one of the groups of the State�s autochthonous peoples. Their forefathers were the indigenous inhabitants of the historic Kamatapur kingdom. The people belonging to this community converted to Islam in the AD 1206. They originally belonged to the ethnic communities of the Meches, the Koches and the Kacharis. It perhaps needs no mention here that the Meches, the Kacharis and the Koches are indigenous ethnic groups of the State�s peoples, Haque said.
But now, a section of the political leaders are projecting themselves as the saviours of the Deshi Janagosthiya people. But this act of such leaders has not been approved by the people of the Deshi Janagosthi. These leaders have now been trying to bracket the Deshi Janagosthiya people with the illegal migrants belonging to the religious minority group and of Bangla origin. These self-styled leaders are trying to create problems in incorporating the names of the Deshi Janagosthiya people in the updated NRC.
The Deshi Janagosthiya people hence urge All Assam Students� Union and its ally organisations to prevail upon the authorities concerned to include the names of the people of their community in the NRC as per Section 3.3 of the Citizenship Act, said Haque, adding the names of the predecessors of the people of this community are there in the 1951 NRC.
