GUWAHATI, Feb 23 - Strict instructions have been issued to the deputy commissioners of all the districts to take action against those found to be involved in providing forged and fake papers to get their names included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
So far, a large number of such forged documents have been detected and those responsible for submitting them are likely to face legal action.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, the State Coordinator for updating the NRC, Prateek Hajela said that those involved in submitting forged and fake papers can be booked under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code for forgery, while they can also be booked under the provisions of the Citizenship Act. The NRC Coordinator�s office has asked the concerned officers to take action against those involved in such forgery, while the Government has also written to all the deputy commissioners to take action against such persons. So far, 14 FIRs have been registered against persons involved in such unscrupulous acts.
Till date, the NRC Coordinator�s office received field verification report of 25 lakh persons and a large number of irregularities have already been detected, as undeserving persons tried to use different methods to get their names included in the NRC with forged papers. A majority of the forged papers were submitted in Lower Assam and also in the Barak Valley districts. In a number of cases, the List-A and List-B documents submitted did not match. List-A contains pre-1971 documents and List-B contains documents to establish linkage. So far, the highest number of fake papers were detected in Gazarikandi area of Dhubri district and Lanka area of Nagaon district.
Replying to a question on the types of forgery detected so far, Hajela said that forged birth certificates is a major issue and a good number of such papers have been detected. He revealed that birth certificates of Nagaland was a major cause of concern. It is understandable if a few persons of the districts of Golaghat and Karbi Anglong submit birth certificates of Nagaland as these districts have inter-state boundaries. But if a good number of people from the districts of Barpeta, Nagaon, Morigaon, Karimganj etc submit birth certificates of Nagaland, it gives rise to suspicion. No one knows till date whether such birth certificates were really issued in Nagaland or manufactured somewhere in Assam itself. The NRC coordinator�s office has written to the Government of Nagaland to verify the same, while, the Supreme Court has also directed government of the neighbouring state to cooperate with the process.
The second area of concern is submission of the certificates issued by the Board of Secondary Education (SEBA) as such documents are forged. Hajela said that the documents have been sent to the SEBA for back end verification and already a substantial number of forged documents were detected. The modus operandi used by the unscrupulous elements is that the certificates of the SEBA are scanned and names were changed keeping the centre code and roll numbers the same. However, after back end verification, such forgeries have been detected.
The unscrupulous persons even resorted to forging of ration cards, copies of electoral rolls and refugee certificates and a number of such cases have been detected.
