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Rights body concern over NRC update

By Correspondent

SILCHAR, April 25 � The Citizens� Rights Preservation Committee (CRPC), Assam has expressed deep anguish and concern regarding the ongoing update of the NRC and the definition of �son of the soil� as forwarded by different organisations of Assam.

Bidhayak Das Purkayastha, general secretary of CRPC, Assam said that the motive behind all movements in the past in the State have resulted in disintegration of Meghalaya and Mizoram and creation of BTAD within the State of Assam. �The linguistic and religious minorities of Assam are the worst victims of the chauvinistic forces till date. The watchword of all the movements is the cleansing of the Bengali-speaking community of Assam by hook or crook. The partition of Sylhet in Assam between India and Pakistan is one of the darkest chapters in Indian history, for which the Bengalis are in no way responsible. Then why are they targeted in their own motherland,� Das Purkayastha questioned. Further, he said that the process of preparation of NRC has virtually denied the rights of Citizenship by Birth as stated in Section 3 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 (Amended in 2003).

It has been observed that every citizen while applying for NRC update will have to prove his or her citizenship confirming the inclusion of his or her name or name of forefather in the list of NRC 1951 or any other voter list upto March 24, 1971, which is one of the vital criteria among the 15 enlisted documents. Though the Government knows and has admitted that all these lists � NRC of 1951, voter list of 1971 or prior to it are not in its possession in total, many of them have been damaged or lost due to many reasons; yet it is carrying out the update work of NRC based on these documents, he mentioned.

Moreover, the CRPC general secretary said that the service centres opened in various parts of Assam are not able to provide the citizens with the voter lists as per their requirement. If somebody approaches for the voter list of 1965, he is given voter list of 1966, one who wants voter list of 1970 is shown the voter list of 1971, etc. On the contrary, they try to manipulate and misguide the common people even as the Supreme Court gave instructions to make all the voter lists from 1951 to 1971 available to the citizens for their verification, Das Purakaystha claimed.

Das Purakystha informed that realising the crisis, CRPC, Assam will host a convention on May 10 at Silchar to discuss and chalk out the future course of action. He urged the people to volunteer their suggestions at [email protected]

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