GUWAHATI, Aug 11 - The Hindi-speaking people who are living in Assam for decades, have urged the government and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) authorities to give them the opportunity to get their names included in the NRC. For the purpose, they have pleaded for appointment of designated officers, who can read Hindi and Urdu documents submitted by the Hindi-speaking people, to the NRC Seva Kendras (NSKs) for inclusion of their names.
Pointing out that the names of hundreds of Hindi-speaking people did not figure in the final draft of the NRC as they had submitted documents either in Hindi or Urdu, Gauravv Somani, one of the prominent leaders of the Hindi-speaking people of the State, said that they have come across hundreds of such instances in which documents produced in Hindi or Urdu were rejected.
Somani, however, maintained that they are in favour of an NRC which does not include any name of foreigners, but at the same time they also want that names of genuine Indians should not be dropped or excluded from this document. �Several delegations of Hindi-speaking community have met Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal to apprise him of the difficulties faced by the Hindi-speaking people in the process of updating the NRC,� Somani said.
He alleged that some NRC officials were found vindictive, as, during the process of verification, they deliberately ignored and left out the names of many Hindi-speaking people.
He argued that some names were dropped on the pretext of respective state governments� failure to send verification reports of documents submitted by the applicants. �We have submitted the necessary documents, so the onus of getting the verification reports from the respective state governments lies on the NRC authorities,� he said.
It is significant that NRC authorities had sent 5.7 lakh documents to 25 states and Union Territories (UTs), which had issued certificates to people belonging to those states and UTs and are residing in Assam owing to their jobs or matrimony-related factors. These documents included educational certificates, birth certificates and documents related to the electoral process issued by the states of their origin.
Somani said that the onus of verifying these documents lies on the NRC authorities. He also regretted the fact that names of many Hindi-speaking people were dropped also because of the fact that the wife�s title was �Devi� in the document, different from the husband�s title. �In Bihar, UP and Rajasthan most of the married women use Devi as their title after marriage, which doesn�t match with the titles of their husbands,� he said.
