Monday, 30 July 2018

Over 40 lakh left out of draft NRC in Assam

Over 40 lakh left out of draft NRC in Assam
Rahul Karmakar GUWAHATI,  JULY 31, 2018 00:00 IST
UPDATED: JULY 31, 2018 05:11 IST
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On tenterhooks:Security forces keep vigil as villagers wait to verify their names on the National Register of Citizens draft, in Morigaon district of Assam on Monday.Ritu Raj Konwar
On tenterhooks:Security forces keep vigil as villagers wait to verify their names on the National Register of Citizens draft, in Morigaon district of Assam on Monday.Ritu Raj Konwar  

People whose names are missing have till September 28 to file claimsState remains calm, and no incidentsof violence have been reportedIssue rocks Parliament; Mamata Banerjee alleges ‘vote bank politics’
More than 40 lakh of the 3.29 crore applicants in Assam were left out of the complete draft National Register of Citizens (NRC), which was published on Monday. The five year exercise was completed at a cost of Rs. 1,220 crore.

The draft NRC was released in Guwahati by Registrar General of India Sailesh and NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela in the presence of Joint Director (Northeast) in the Ministry of Home Affairs Satyendra Garg.

While the publication of the list triggered a political row in Parliament, the situation in Assam remained largely peaceful, with thousands lining up at NRC Nagarik Seva Kendras (NSKs) to check their status.

Soon after the list was released, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee hit out at the Centre, accusing it of resorting to “vote bank politics”. “This divide and rule policy will finish the country,” she said at a press conference in Kolkata.

Including first list

As many as 3,29,91,384 people had applied and the applications of 2,89,83,677 were accepted, said Mr. Sailesh.

The final draft included the names of 1.9 crore applicants who were listed in the first draft published on December 31, 2017.

“The remaining 40,007,707 applicants, whose names didn't figure in the list will be given ample opportunity through a process of claims and objections till September 28, and their citizenship status will not be questioned till the final, error-free draft is prepared,” Mr. Sailesh said.

Mr. Sailesh and Mr. Hajela, however, did not specify when the final draft would be prepared. But they indicated the period for claims and objections could be extended by a month.

Those not on the list include 2.48 lakh Doubtful-voters (D-voters) and their siblings and descendants.

‘List not final’

“The process has been completely transparent, fair, objective and meticulously carried out,” Mr. Sailesh said.

Reiterating that the list released was only a draft and not the final one, he said, “Those not in the draft will get ample opportunity with adequate time to establish their citizenship claim. People who lack knowledge will be provided assistance. Full justice will be meted to all.”


Over 40 Lakh Left Out of Assam NRC Final Draft; Rajya Sabha Adjourned as Opposition Protests
"No genuine Indian citizen should have any fear," said the registrar general, while talking of people who had been left out of the list.

Over 40 Lakh Left Out of Assam NRC Final Draft; Rajya Sabha Adjourned as Opposition Protests
Security personnel guard the NRC office in Guwahati ahead of the release of the final draft. Credit: PTI

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30/JUL/2018
Guwahati: The much-anticipated second and final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was published today with 2.9 crore names out of the total 3.29 crore applicants in Assam, said registrar general of India Sailesh in Guwahati.

The names of 40.07 lakh applicants did not find a place in the historic document, touted to be proof of Assamese identity.

Rajya Sabha was adjourned till noon after members of the opposition voiced vociferous disagreement with the number of names left out.

No sooner had the House mourned the death of a former member and listed papers presented, TMC members led by their leader Derek O’Brien were up on their feet raising the issue.

SP members and some from the Congress too started raising the issue leading to a din.

Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu first said he had not received any notice and later said that some members had met him expressing desire to raise the NRC issue.

“I myself have requested the home minister to come (to respond to members’ concern),” he said adding he was ready for a discussion.

As unrelenting members moved to the aisle, he warned that House proceedings would be adjourned if they did not return to their seats.

“I am ready for discussions. I want the home minister to respond. What (more do) you want,” he said. “The home minister is here. He will respond.” Home minister Rajnath Singh was present in the House.

As members moved into the well of the House, Naidu to adjourned proceedings till noon.

Out of 3.29 crore applicants, 2.89 crore have been found eligible for inclusion in the complete draft of NRC, that was released in Guwahati this morning. This meant that the names of 40.07 lakh have been left out.

Earlier, the House mourned the passing away of N Thangaraj Pandian, a former member of Rajya Sabha.

Pandian, who represented the state of Tamil Nadu from June 1992 to June 1998 in the Upper House, passed away on July 17, 2017 at the age of 61 years, Naidu said reading out an obituary reference.

Members stood in their places as a mark of respect for the departed soul.

The first draft of the NRC was published during the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 this year, containing 1.9 crore names.

“This is a historic day for India and Assam. The exercise is unparalleled in size. It is a legal process done under the direct supervision of the Supreme Court,” said Sailesh at a press conference.

The exercise was carried out in a transparent, fair, objective manner, he stated.

The NRC was meant to include the names of all Indian citizens who have been residing in Assam since before March 25, 1971.

Talking about people whose names did not appear in the final draft, Sailesh said, “The process for making claims and objections will begin on August 30 and continue till September 28. Adequate and ample scope will be given to people for making objections. No genuine Indian citizen should have any fear.”

The application process for the NRC started in May 2015 and a total of 6.5 crore documents were received from 68.27 lakh families across Assam, he added.


Lakh Risk Losing Citizenship As Assam Releases Draft List: 10 Points
Assam NRC: Some 40 lakh people are not in the draft list of the National Register of Citizens or NRC, updated for the first time since 1951 to account for illegal migration from Bangladesh
All India | Reported by Ratnadip Choudhury, Edited by Debanish Achom | Updated: July 30, 2018 15:36 IST
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Assam NRC: The government said those left out can file appeals against the NRC list
GUWAHATI:  Around 40 lakh people in Assam have been left out of a draft list of citizens released today, and face deportation if they cannot prove their citizenship. The state's National Register of Citizens or NRC has been updated for the first time since 1951 to account for illegal migration from neighbouring Bangladesh. Releasing the updated list, officials underscored that no one would be deported or arrested as this is only a draft. The recount is seen by critics as a move to target Assam's Muslim population on the pretext of weeding out Bangladeshi migrants. Thousands of central forces are in the state to prevent any unrest over the new list. "Some people are unnecessarily trying to create an atmosphere of fear... This is a draft and not the final list," Home Minister Rajnath Singh said.
Here are the top 10 updates in the Assam NRC issue:
"Based on this draft no reference case will be sent to the foreigner tribunal or put in a detention centre," said Satyendra Garg, home ministry officer in charge of the northeast. In a statement, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has asked people to refrain from making "inflammatory" remarks.
Of 3.29 crore people who had applied for their names to be included, 2.89 crore have made it to the revised citizen's list. The rest face the prospect of being declared illegal and sent out unless they can satisfy the doubts of the authorities.
Claims and objections from those left out of the citizen's list will be taken up from August 30 to September 28, said officials. "Adequate and ample scope will be given to people for making objections. No genuine Indian citizen should have any fear," said Registrar General of India, Sailesh.
It is not clear whether these 40 lakh will be eligible to vote in next year's national election.  "The Election Commission will decide," said an official.
The register counts only those as Assam citizens who can prove that they were living in the state on or before March 21, 1971.
The list has been updated to include descendants of those in the state in 1951 -- when the first census took place -- or those who were in Assam's electoral rolls as of March 24, 1971.
The descendants of those who can prove citizenship till March 24, 1971, will also be considered Indian citizens. So will those who arrived between January 1, 1966 and March 25, 1971, and registered themselves with the Foreigners Registration Regional Officer.
The first draft of the NRC was published on January 1, with 1.9 crore names. Earlier this month, officials said there were anomalies in the documents of 1.5 lakh people, a third of them women.
The centre has sent around 23,000 paramilitary troops to Assam and neighbouring Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, to prevent any flare-up.
Applications for inclusion into the National Register for Citizens started in May 2015 and documents were received from around 68 lakh families across Assam.
He will be produced in the court again later in the day, the official said.


More time for filing claims
Vijaita Singh NEW DELHI,  JULY 31, 2018 00:00 IST
UPDATED: JULY 31, 2018 05:11 IST
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The Centre on Monday said it had tweaked rules so that the 40 lakh applicants left out of the final draft of the National Register of Citizens in Assam get enough time to file “claims and objections” to prove their residency.

A senior Home Ministry official said the process to file claims and objections, which should have been initiated immediately after the final draft was published, will instead commence on August 31 and end on September 30. The official said if the need arises, the window could be extended for another month.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh emphasised that Monday’s list was “only a draft and not the final NRC.”

‘Impartial process’

“Everyone will have full opportunity to file claims and objections as per provision in law. Only after the disposal of claims and objections, the final NRC will be published. Some people are unnecessarily trying to create an atmosphere of fear.... Some misinformation is also being spread. NRC process has been done impartially. Some people may not have been able to submit necessary documents. They will get full opportunity through Claims and Objections process,” he said.

The Minister told the Lok Sabha that the entire process was monitored by the Supreme Court and Centre had little role to play.

SC tells Parliament to draft new law on mob lynching, condemns 'mobocracy': Highlights from judgment

SC tells Parliament to draft new law on mob lynching, condemns 'mobocracy': Highlights from judgment
India FP Staff Jul 17, 2018 14:03:42 IST
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Condemning the rising incidents of lynching cases in India, the Supreme Court on Tuesday instructed Parliament to come up with a new law which would deal with offences of mob-lynching. A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra condemned case of mob-lynching and called the incidents "horrendous acts of mobocracy" which cannot be allowed to become a new norm. Pronouncing the judgment, Misra said that no one can take the law into their hands or become a law unto himself.

The bench, which also comprised Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice D Y Chandrachud, said it was the duty of state governments to ensue law and order in society, besides ensuring that the rule of law prevailed. The bench passed a slew of directions to provide "preventive, remedial and punitive measures" to deal with offences like mob violence and cow vigilantism as it said that it was the duty of state governments to ensue law and order in society. "Citizens cannot take law into their hands and cannot become law unto themselves," the bench said.

The top court passed the order on a plea seeking formulation of guidelines to curb such violent incidents in the country. Here are the highlights of the judgment:

It shall be the duty of the central government as well as the state governments to take steps to curb and stop dissemination of irresponsible and explosive messages, videos and other material on various social media platforms which have a tendency to incite mob violence and lynching of any kind.
The police shall cause to register FIR under Section 153A of IPC (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc) and/or other relevant provisions of law against persons who disseminate irresponsible and explosive messages and videos having content which is likely to incite mob violence and lynching of any kind.
The state governments shall prepare a lynching/mob violence victim compensation scheme in the light of the provisions of Section 357A of CrPC within one month from the date of this judgment.
The cases of lynching and mob violence shall be specifically tried by designated court/fast track courts earmarked for that purpose in each district. Such courts shall hold trial of the case on a day to day basis.
To set a stern example in cases of mob violence and lynching, upon conviction of the accused person(s), the trial court must ordinarily award maximum sentence as provided for various offences under the provisions of the IPC.
Wherever it is found that a police officer or an officer of the district administration has failed to comply with the aforesaid directions in order to prevent and/or investigate and/or facilitate expeditious trial of any crime of mob violence and lynching, the same shall be considered as an act of deliberate negligence and/or misconduct for which appropriate action must be taken against him/her and not limited to departmental action under the service rules. The departmental action shall be taken to its logical conclusion preferably within six months by the authority of the first instance.
The states are directed to take disciplinary action against the concerned officials if it is found that (i) such official(s) did not prevent the incident, despite having prior knowledge of it, or (ii) where the incident has already occurred, such official(s) did not promptly apprehend and institute criminal proceedings against the culprits.
It is the duty of the state to ensure that the machinery of law and order functions efficiently and effectively in maintaining peace so as to preserve our quintessentially secular ethos and pluralistic social fabric in a democratic set-up governed by rule of law.
Apart from the directions we have given hereinbefore and what we have expressed, we think it appropriate to recommend to the legislature, that is, the Parliament, to create a separate offence for lynching and provide adequate punishment for the same. We have said so as a special law in this field would instill a sense of fear for law amongst the people who involve themselves in such kinds of activities. There can be no trace of doubt that fear of law and veneration for the command of law constitute thefoundation of a civilized society.
The horrendous acts of mobocracy cannot be permitted to inundate the law of the land. Earnest action and concrete steps have to be taken to protect the citizens from the recurrent pattern of violence which cannot be allowed to become “the new normal”. The State cannot turn a deaf ear to the growing rumblings of its People, since its concern, to quote Woodrow Wilson, “must ring with the voices of the people."

Centre Will Bring Bill Proposing Death Penalty for Lynching: MoS Hansraj Ahir

Centre Will Bring Bill Proposing Death Penalty for Lynching: MoS Hansraj Ahir
"The proposed bill will be on the lines of a legislation seeking death penalty to those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years," Hansraj Ahir told a delegation of the Nathjogi community who called on him in Yavatmal.
PTIUpdated:July 30, 2018, 9:47 PM IST facebookTwittergoogleskype
Centre Will Bring Bill Proposing Death Penalty for Lynching: MoS Hansraj Ahir Lynching is a barbaric crime and no civilised society can accept it, said the minister. (Image: Twitter)

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Yavatmal (Maharashtra): The central government will soon bring a bill proposing death penalty for the crime of lynching, Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir said in Yavatmal on Monday.

The proposed bill will be on the lines of a legislation seeking capital punishment to those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years, he said.


"Lynching is a barbaric crime and no civilised society can accept it. The Union government will soon bring a bill proposing death penalty for lynching."


"The proposed bill will be on the lines of a legislation seeking death penalty to those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years," the minister told a delegation of the Nathjogi community who called on him in Yavatmal.


The minister's remarks came against the backdrop of a spate of incidents of mob violence over cow smuggling and child lifting being reported from various parts of the country.

Five members of Nathjogi community, a Nomadic Tribe (NT), from Solapur district were allegedly lynched by a mob in Dhule district in north Maharashtra on suspicion of being "child lifters" earlier this month.

Expressing grief over the incident, Ahir said the Centre and the Maharashtra government have taken the incident very seriously.

The delegation told ministers that Nathjogi children are deprived of education despite the Right to Education (RTE) Act in force.

They demanded facilities like housing, land for tilling, healthcare, employment for youths and security.

Law on lines of SC/ST Atrocities Act for Muslims should be enacted, says Maharashtra SP Chief

 Law on lines of SC/ST Atrocities Act for Muslims should be enacted, says Maharashtra SP Chief
Abu Azmi termed Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray's demand that the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act should be scrapped, as "unconstitutional".
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By: PTI | Jalna(maha) | Published: August 1, 2016 12:05:31 am
 Muslim youth missing in Maharashtra, ISIS linked youth missing, 100 youth missing, Abu Azmi blasts Sena and govt, SP, BJP, Shiv Sena, Maharashtra news, India news

SP leader Abu Asim Azmi. (File Photo)
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Maharashtra chief of Samajwadi Party, Abu Azmi said a law along the lines of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act should be enacted for Muslims to protect them from “particular section” of society.

“On the lines of the Prevention of Atrocities Act, a similar law should also be enacted for Muslims as they face atrocities and derogatory remarks from certain section of society,” Azmi said here.

He attacked Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray for the latter’s reported demand that the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act should be scrapped, terming it as “unconstitutional”.

Azmi alleged that the police and ATS are falsely implicating innocent Muslims in connection to IS. “ATS is creating terror among Muslims and arresting youths from the community who have nothing to do with the terrorist organisation.

“In the past, the police had arrested Muslim youths for terror link and dumped them in prisons for many years, but later they were exonerated by court. Such police officers should be punished as they are responsible for ruining the lives of innocent Muslim youths,” he said.

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Referring to arrest of a man from Parbhani by ATS over his alleged IS links, Azmi alleged the agency has “cooked up the story”. “Muslims and religious heads should condemn IS as the terrorist organisation is a blot on Islam and is tarnishing image of the religion,” he said.

“At a time when ‘Gau Rakshaks’ are attacking Dalits and Muslims, the governments at Centre and in State are playing the role of a mute spectator,” Azmi charged. He also attacked Hyderabad-based MIM.

It’s time to enact an anti-lynching law


It’s time to enact an anti-lynching law
G. Sampath AUGUST 04, 2017 00:15 IST
UPDATED: AUGUST 04, 2017 00:27 IST
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It’s time to enact an anti-lynching law
But a civil society draft doing the rounds is too shy to clearly call out the threat to minorities
In a civilised society, even one lynching is too many. But India has seen a spate of them of late. The data website IndiaSpend has compiled instances of cow-linked violence from 2010 to 2017. It found that during this period, 28 people were killed in 63 such incidents.

An overwhelming 97% of these attacks took place after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government came to power in May 2014. About 86% of those killed were Muslims. In 21% of the cases, the police filed cases against the victims/survivors. Cow-related lynchings rose sharply in 2017, with 20 attacks in the first six months. This marks a 75% increase over 2016, which had been the worst year for mob lynchings since 2010.

The groundswell of public disgust at the lynchings crystallised under the banner of the National Campaign Against Mob Lynching (NCAML), which has initiated a campaign for a law against mob lynching. Also known as ‘Masuka’, short for Manav Suraksha Kanoon (law to protect humans), a draft of the proposed legislation is currently up on the Internet, awaiting suggestions from the public.

The primary argument of the activists and lawyers advocating an anti-lynching law is that it fills a void in our criminal jurisprudence. It is true that at present there is no law that criminalises mob killings. The Indian Penal Code has provisions for unlawful assembly, rioting, and murder but nothing that takes cognisance of a group of people coming together to kill (a lynch mob).

It is possible, under Section 223 (a) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), to prosecute together two or more people accused of the same offence committed in the course of the “same transaction”. But the provision falls far short of an adequate legal framework for prosecuting lynch mobs.

The NCAML’s draft Protection from Lynching Act, 2017 defines, for the first time in Indian legal history, the terms ‘lynching’, ‘mob’ and ‘victim’ of mob lynching. It makes lynching a non-bailable offence, criminalises dereliction of duty by a policeman, criminalises incitement on social media, and stipulates that adequate compensation be paid, within a definite time frame, to victims and survivors. It also guarantees a speedy trial and witness protection.

The apprehensions
On the face of it, it is difficult to fault the intent or the provisions of the draft legislation. Nonetheless, two aspects merit close scrutiny: the potential for abuse, and the underlying premise that a generic anti-lynching law could address India’s lynching problem.

On the question of misuse, the provisions empowering local law enforcement officials to take pre-emptive action could easily be invoked to criminalise peaceful public assembly, especially if the gathering is of workers or members of marginalised communities agitating for their rights. For instance, the police could use this law to detain a group of labourers planning a dharna, on the grounds that they constitute a mob that poses a threat to company officials.

To take another example, the ‘Review Committee’ that would monitor the prosecution of cases under this law is supposed to be headed by a senior police officer. Its findings would be submitted to a senior police officer. In a scenario where the police often serve as the handmaiden of the ruling dispensation, could we realistically expect one member of the police force to hold another accountable? Would it not have been prudent to mandate that the Review Committee make its report public or have members from civil society?

A category error
No one can dispute that a major reason for the recent rise in lynchings is impunity. It can be reasonably assumed that the lynch mobs that murdered Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, Pehlu Khan in Alwar, and Hafiz Junaid in Haryana were confident of getting away with it. So far, the state has done little to shake that confidence.

The NCAML activists must know that this confidence has little to do with legislative lacuna. Rather, it has everything to do with the law enforcement machinery taking the side of the lynch mob. This phenomenon has been observed time and again in cases of targeted violence against minorities — which is precisely what cow-related lynchings are.

Put simply, the problem is not mob lynching per se but the mob lynching of minorities, for that is where impunity kicks in. We can be certain that if a mob of factory workers were to lynch someone from the management, retribution would be swift. The historical proof of this argument, if one were needed, was supplied by the lynching of Maruti Suzuki’s HR manager in July 2012. The police arrested 148 workers and charged all them with murder.

Evidently, the state can act, if it wishes to, using the existing provisions of the law. It is a matter of whether it is in its interests to do so. In the case of cow-linked lynchings, a lot depends on whether the incumbent in power considers it compatible with its political interests to crack down on such attacks.

It’s about communalism
It is therefore mystifying why the advocates of Masuka appear reluctant to name the problem for what it is: targeted communal lynchings. Perhaps they feel that doing so carries the risk of their campaign being dismissed as a ‘minority issue’. But it actually is a minority issue, and that is why the majority needs to take it up.

It is understandable that in a climate of majoritarianism, any political mobilisation for the protection of minorities would be anxious about the bogey of minority appeasement. It could even mean that an anti-lynching Bill stands less chance of making it through Parliament. But then, a truly ‘civil’ society should feel no hesitation in demanding that the state protect its minorities because protection of minorities is one of the biggest responsibilities of any democracy. The UN has a Special Rapporteur for minority issues precisely because it recognises that “minorities in all regions of the world continue to face serious threats”.

India already has an antidote – two, in fact – to combat the impunity enjoyed by anti-minority lynch mobs. The first is the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011, or the Anti-Communal Violence Bill. The other is police reforms, which are pending despite the Supreme Court ordering their implementation.

The Anti-Communal Violence Bill was buried because it was felt that it threatened the autonomy of States by mooting a parallel structure that undermined federalism. This is a misrepresentation, and the Bill needs to be revived for three reasons: it fixes command responsibility for communal incidents; it recognises that targeted communal violence disproportionately victimises minorities; and it creates a mechanism to insulate investigations of communal violence from political interference. The last reason is also why police reforms are vital, and a purely legislative approach to tackling anti-minority violence could prove ineffective.

The draft anti-lynching law needs to be revised to incorporate these key elements of the Anti-Communal Violence Bill. Second, the demand for an anti-lynching law needs to be buttressed by a parallel campaign for police reforms. All said and done, even the best of laws can achieve little in the face of a law enforcement machinery primed to do the bidding of its political masters.

Monday, 23 July 2018

SC to hear Alwar case on August 28

SC to hear Alwar case on August 28
Legal Correspondent NEW DELHI,  JULY 23, 2018 22:41 IST
UPDATED: JULY 23, 2018 22:41 IST
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The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear on August 28 the pleas seeking contempt action against the Rajasthan government in the Alwar mob lynching case. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra observed this orally in an urgent mentioning made by activist Tehseen Poonawala, who alleged that incidents of mob lynching and vigilantism were taking place despite a recent apex court verdict.

Terming lynchings as "horrendous acts of mobocracy", the Supreme Court, in a judgment on July 17, directed several preventive, remedial and punitive measures to deal with lynching and mob violence. It ordered the Centre and the States to implement the measures and file compliance reports within the next four weeks.

Lynchings cannot become the order of the day, the judgment had said.

The judgment had referred to how self proclaimed and self-styled vigilantes brazenly target Dalits and minority community members in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi.


New rules to allow appeals on NRC

New rules to allow appeals on NRC
Vijaita Singh NEW DELHI,  JULY 23, 2018 23:15 IST
UPDATED: JULY 23, 2018 23:41 IST
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Villagers at an NRC centre in Morigaon district of Assam. File Photo
Villagers at an NRC centre in Morigaon district of Assam. File Photo  

Citizens can move Tribunals
The Centre is all set to amend the rules that would enable residents whose names don’t feature in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to file an appeal before the Foreigners Tribunals in Assam.

A senior Home Ministry official explained that amendments will be made to the rules in the Foreigners Tribunal Order, 1964 as under the existing law only State or Police could move the Tribunal against a person suspected to be illegally staying in Assam.

“As the NRC process is in an advanced stage, we have to think of people whose names don’t appear even in the final list. Remedies will have to be extended to such people. Under the changed rules, such subjects could themselves move the Foreigners Tribunals and present their case that they are not staying illegally,” said a senior government official. There are 100 Foreigners Tribunals functioning in Assam.

Deadline nears
As per directions of the Supreme Court, the Registrar General of India (RGI) is to publish the final draft list on July 30 to segregate Indian citizens living in Assam from those who had illegally entered the State from Bangladesh after March 25, 1971.

The first draft containing the names of 1.9 crore out of 3.29 crore applicants was published on December 31 last year.

Another Home Ministry official said on Monday that those not part of the draft NRC will not automatically be declared foreigners, but will get a one-month window to file claims and objections, besides subsequent judicial recourse.

“Residents will have opportunity to file claims and objections before a number of authorities in a one-month window from August-September. They will be given a proper hearing,” the official said.

Foreigners Tribunal
Exclusion from the final NRC does not mean automatic declaration of anyone as foreigner and once the final document is published, if someone is dissatisfied, he or she can always go to a Foreigners Tribunal in the State to get justice, he said.

“There are unnecessary misgivings about the NRC and people are trying to fan rumours when the entire exercise is being monitored by the Supreme Court,” said the official.

He said no one should have any apprehension about the exercise and added that adequate central paramilitary forces were dispatched to Assam to assist the State administration to deal with any law-and-order situation.

Alwar fallout: govt. panel to check cases of mob lynching

Alwar fallout: govt. panel to check cases of mob lynching
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT NEW DELHI,  JULY 23, 2018 23:22 IST
UPDATED: JULY 23, 2018 23:40 IST
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Shaken family: Rakbar’s children and relatives surround his unconscious wife at their house in Haryana.
Shaken family: Rakbar’s children and relatives surround his unconscious wife at their house in Haryana.   | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Ministers’ group to study report, submit suggestions
Hours after Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted on Friday’s lynching incident at Alwar in Rajasthan, the government said a high-level committee, headed by Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, had been constituted to check cases of “mob lynching.” The committee will submit its recommendations within four weeks, the government said.

The government said a Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will consider the report of the committee and submit its recommendations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Last week, a dairy farmer, Rakbar Khan from Haryana’s Mewat district, was lynched by a group of seven persons in Alwar when he was transporting two cows and their calves.

A Home Ministry official said the Centre had sought a report from the Rajasthan government on the incident.

“The government is concerned at the incidents of violence by mobs in some parts of the country. The government has already condemned such incidents, has made its stand clear in Parliament that it is committed to upholding the rule of law and adopting effective measures to curb such incidents,” a statement by the Home Ministry said.

Onus on States
The statement reiterated that, as per the Constitution, ‘Police‘ and ‘Public Order’ are State subjects and State governments are responsible for controlling crime, maintaining law and order and protecting the life and property of the citizens. It informed the Rajya Sabha last week that the National Crime Records Bureau does not maintain specific data related with respect to lynching incidents in the country.

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The Ministry said it has issued advisories from time to time to States and Union Territories for maintenance of public order and prevention of crime in their areas of jurisdiction. “An advisory on addressing the issue of mob lynching on suspicion of child-lifting was issued on July 4. Earlier, an advisory was issued on August 9, 2016 on disturbances by miscreants in the name of protection of cow,” the statement said.

On July 17, the Supreme Court condemned the recent spate of lynchings as “horrendous acts of mobocracy” and told Parliament to make lynching a separate offence.

Describing lynchings and mob violence as “creeping threats”, the court warned that the rising wave of frenzied mobs — fed by fake news, self-professed morality and false stories — would consume the country like a “typhoon-like monster.”

“Government respects the recent directions of the Supreme Court on the issue of mob violence, and has issued an advisory to State Governments urging them to take effective measures to prevent incidents of mob violence and lynching and to take stringent action as per law.

The State Governments have been advised to implement the directions issued in the matter by the Supreme Court on July 17,” the Home Ministry statement said.

Apart from Mr Gauba, secretaries of the Department of Justice, Department of Legal Affairs and Social Justice and Empowerment are members of the committee.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot constitute the members of the GoM.

Are illegal Bangladeshi migrants responsible for increase in Assam's Muslim population?

Fact check: Are illegal Bangladeshi migrants responsible for increase in Assam's Muslim population?
As National Register of Citizens is updated to identify illegal immigrants, a former statistics professor’s book busts a few myths about the state’s demography.
Fact check: Are illegal Bangladeshi migrants responsible for increase in Assam's Muslim population?
Reuters
Jan 16, 2018 · 09:00 am
Ajaz Ashraf
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Census reports have long been a pivot of Assam’s politics, spawning anxiety among its people that “unabated infiltration” from Bangladesh would endanger their cultural identity. It is claimed that the influx from the neighbouring nation is why Muslims have grown from being 24.68% of the state’s population in 1951 to 28.43% in 1991 and 34.22% in 2011.

It is a myth that Infiltration: Genesis of Assam Movement busts conclusively. The book, published last year, is written by Abdul Mannan, former professor of statistics at Gauhati University. He concludes that Assam’s Muslim population has increased because of the community’s high birth rate and not because of illegal immigration from Bangladesh. Illegal immigrants in Assam are estimated to number between 16 lakh and 84 lakh, in a total population of 3.12 crore according to the 2011 Census.

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Discussing Mannan’s findings in a recent article in the Economic and Political Weekly, the political scientist Akhil Ranjan Dutta wrote:

“Successive censuses have proved, as Abdul Mannan has established using extensive data in his recent book on immigration in Assam, that birth rates among Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, and Christians in Assam had been even higher than among Muslims during 1971-91. This was due to the backwardness of these communities in all dimensions of development.”  

But that is getting ahead of the story.

In the 1950s and 1960s, successive Congress governments expelled lakhs of Bengali Muslims from Assam on the ground that they were illegal infiltrators from what was then East Pakistan. It was not until Bangladesh became an independent country in 1971, however, that popular anger against the so-called foreigners acquired intensity. Bangladeshi Muslims were perceived to be flooding into Assam through the porous border to escape poverty.

By 1979-80, the All Assam Students Union was spearheading the anti-foreigner movement, cashing in on wild estimates of the number of Bangladeshi immigrants to gain wide support. One estimate numbered the Bangladeshis at 45% of Assam’s estimated population of 1.6 crore in 1981. Such claims were hard to refute, not least because the 1981 Census could not be conducted owing to the Assam agitation, then at its peak.

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In 1991, the Census reported that Muslims were 28.43% of Assam’s population, up from 24.56% in 1971. Several publications interpreted these figures to reach an alarming conclusion: Bangladeshis were demographically colonising Assam.


For instance, Asam Bani, a popular weekly, claimed in its August 18, 1994 edition that 16 lakh Bangladeshis had entered Assam between 1971 and 1991. Who were they? Muslims, Asam Bani declared, after analysing the Census data. Since Hindus had a growth rate of 41.89% in 1971-1991 and Muslims 77.42%, the weekly argued that the excess growth rate of Muslims was primarily because of the Bangladeshis.

It further argued that had the influx from Bangladesh been negligible, the growth rate of Muslims would not have exceeded 45%. Why? It did not offer a reason. Still, such claims became common sense in Assam.

It is this common sense that Mannan challenges: the rise in Assam’s Muslim population was not unusual and it was not a consequence of immigration from Bangladesh. After all, the all-India growth rate of Muslims between 1971 and 1991 was 71.47%, just a little lower than the 77.42% that the Muslims of Assam clocked in the same period.


More significantly, the growth rate of Assam’s Muslims in 1971-1991 compared favourably with the community’s growth rate in states such as Uttar Pradesh (76.30%), West Bengal (77.32%), Madhya Pradesh (80.76%), Rajasthan (98.29%), Tripura (89%), Punjab (110.32%) and Himachal Pradesh (77.64%). Barring Punjab, all these states have always had sizeable Muslim populations.

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In this context, Mannan asks a crucial question: “If it is assumed that the high growth rate among Muslims in Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana is due to the migration of Muslim workers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam or West Bengal, then how would we explain the high growth rate in Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and West Bengal?”

Certainly not on account of Bangladeshi infiltrators, with West Bengal perhaps being the exception.

The growth rate of Hindus (41.89%) in Assam in 1971-1991 was indeed much lower than that of Muslims (77.42%). But parsing this low growth rate throws up a story: Assam’s Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes grew at a higher rate than even Muslims – Scheduled Castes at 81.84% and Scheduled Tribes at 78.91%.

The high growth rate of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes too is not unique to Assam. As Table 2 shows, the growth rate of Scheduled Castes was far higher than that of Hindus generally in most states. In fact, Scheduled Castes in Andhra Pradesh (83.43%), Maharashtra (189.44%) and Karnataka (91.41%) grew at a higher rate than in Assam. The growth rate of Scheduled Tribes followed similar trends as Table 2 shows. (Remember that Scheduled Tribes, unlike Scheduled Castes, are more concentrated in some states.)

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Referring to these trends, Mannan asks: Is the higher growth rate among Muslims, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes linked to poverty, illiteracy and social backwardness?

He proceeds to answer this question through another statistical comparison. Table 3 shows the growth rates of various communities in each of Assam’s 23 districts between 1971 and 1991. (There are now 33 districts). The growth rate of the Scheduled Castes is higher than that of Muslims in 10 districts. In eight districts, the Scheduled Tribes outstrip the growth rate of Muslims.


Significantly, Mannan compares the growth rates of Muslims in Upper Assam and Lower Assam in this period. This is because Muslims in Upper Assam are largely of indigenous origin while Lower Assam is home to Muslims of Bengali origin. The latter are not infiltrators. They are descendants of Bengali Muslim peasants settled by the British in marshy and riverine areas of Assam to boost agriculture. Some also migrated voluntarily in search of livelihood, but, in undivided India, they were just moving from one part of the country to another.

Assam’s districts have been repeatedly divided to create new ones, leading to a peculiar trend in Dhemaji. When this district was carved out of Lakhimpur in 1989, a large number of Muslims moved to the latter for reasons of livelihood. Dhemaji thus registered a negative growth rate for Muslims, as Table 3, prepared soon after the new district was created, shows.

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In 2011, Hindus comprised 95.47% of Dhemaji’s population and Muslims just 1.96%. “Dhemaji’s Muslim population was low even in 1987,” Mannan told Scroll.in. “The migration of Muslims brought down the population sharply and led to the community’s growth rate being negative. But the growth rate of Muslims in Dhemaji in 2001-2011 crawled up to 20%.”

Leave out Dhemaji as an anomaly then. In all other districts of Upper Assam except Jorhat and Sibsagar (now Sivasagar), the growth rate of Muslims was over 68%. In Jorhat, it was 60.80% and in Sibsagar 59.01%.

What Jorhat and Sibsagar have in common is a high literacy rate. In 1991, it was 65.89% for Jorhat and 64.84% for Sibsagar, much higher than the state average of 52.89%. The high literacy rates are a consequence of their relative prosperity – a large number of Assam’s tea gardens and oil fields are concentrated in these two districts, and they hum with business.

Literacy and prosperity translated, not surprisingly, in the low growth rate of Hindus in Jorhat (33.54%) and Sibsagar (35.91%). But why was the growth rate of Muslims still substantially higher than that of Hindus in the two districts? “The reason may be the social backwardness and relative poverty among Muslims,” Mannan suggests.

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He also points out another statistical peculiarity: “If those who say Bangladeshi immigrants have ballooned the population of Muslims in Lower Assam, then how would they explain their high growth rate in the districts of Tinsukia (89.56%), Golaghat (97.24%) and Dibrugarh (68.43%), which are in Upper Assam, where the presence of migrant Muslims is negligible?”

Mannan then turns the spotlight on Table 4, based on the Census figures of 2001 and 2011. It shows that districts with a growth rate of 21% and above also have a high percentage of Muslims. What explains this phenomenon? Mannan chooses two districts – Jorhat and Dhubri – for comparison. In 2001-2011, Dhubri registered the highest growth rate (24.4%) among all districts of Assam. By contrast, Jorhat clocked the lowest growth rate of 9.3%.


This gulf between the population growth rates was mirrored in other social indicators. Dhubri had an infant mortality rate of 72 in 2011 as against Jorhat’s 57. In Dhubri, there was a doctor for every 10,844 people as compared to one for every 7,189 people in Jorhat. Dhubri’s literacy rate of 48.21% was far behind Jorhat’s 76.21%. There was one lower primary school for every 1,129 people in Dhubri as against one for every 638 people in Jorhat. Dhubri had a bank branch for every 29,239 people while Jorhat had one for every 11,355 people. The per capita loan disbursal in Jorhat was three times more than Dhubri’s.

It is truism in demographic studies that population explosion is a consequence of poverty, illiteracy, insufficient health and sanitation services, and a sluggish economy. “This is precisely true of Assam too,” Mannan writes.

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Indeed, many foot soldiers of the Assam agitation have veered around to thinking that the presence of Bangladeshi Muslims is not as high as was previously believed. One of them is popular TV anchor and author of Assam After Independence Mrinal Talukdar. In his college days, he was deeply engaged with the All Assam Students Union’s movement. “During those days I believed Bangladeshi Muslims had a substantial presence in Assam,” Talukdar told Scroll.in. “I have a neutral position on the issue now. I am willing to go by whatever number the National Register of Citizens throws up.”

Mannan says he is certain that if the ongoing exercise to update the National Register of Citizens is carried out honestly, Bangladeshi Muslims in Assam will be counted in thousands, not in lakhs.

Regardless of how many Bangladeshi Muslims the National Register of Citizens identifies, there is no denying that the truth about Assam’s demography was sacrificed on the altar of politics. It seems spurious theories about Bangladeshi Muslims were spun not out of ignorance, but with intent. In this, two Assam police officers and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh played a crucial role. The RSS deftly turned the All Assam Students Union’s movement against outsiders, that is, Indians from other states, into one against foreigners, that is, Bangladeshi Muslims.

The second part of this series will look at how the two police officers and the RSS changed the course of the Assam movement.



National Register of Citizens in Assam can trigger a humanitarian crisis
For the BJP/RSS, it is also part of their ideology; their belief that Muslims reproduce fast and should be stopped.
POLITICS |  5-minute read |   16-01-2018
Seema GuhaSEEMA GUHA  @seemaguha1
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At the heart of the student movement in Assam in the early 1980s was the move to get Bengali Muslim immigrants out of the state and delete their names from the state’s electoral rolls. At the time, BJP leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh and LK Advani paid regular visits to Assam to support the students’ demand. The RSS, too, seeing the anti-Muslim mood in the state, began working quietly behind the scenes to spread its ideology.

The All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the BJP were on the same page owing to the fear that Assam’s demographic pattern could change because of the illegal influx of Bangladeshi Muslims, turning it into India’s second Muslim majority state (after Kashmir). Second, the Congress party kept winning elections because illegal immigrants voted the party into power.

Simply put, Bangladeshis were on the electoral rolls and formed the Congress’ vote bank. Not much has changed in the decades since.

In 1985, a settlement was negotiated between student leaders and the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress government, and the former launched their regional party, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP).

nrc-690_011518071520.jpg
Simply put, Bangladeshis were on the electoral rolls and formed the Congress’ vote bank. Not much has changed in the decades since. Photo: Reuters

Today, the BJP and the AGP often use the same language.

The Assam Accord, laid down that all those who entered the state after March 25, 1971, are foreigners, and must be identified and deported back to Bangladesh. Those settled in Assam before that date would be considered Indian citizens.

Detecting and deporting so called foreigners is a tough ask. The AGP, which came to power on the pledge of relieving Assam of Bangladeshis, realised how difficult the exercise was.

The National Register of Citizens (NRC), on the face of it is an excellent idea for border areas and would help in assuaging the anxiety of the local Assamese worried about the influx of migrants. It was not introduced by the BJP. The decision to form a register of Indian citizens of Assam was taken in 1951 after the first Census. However, not much was done. It was revived again in 2014, with the idea of upgrading the NRC. The first draft of the register was published on December 31, 2017 on the instruction of the Supreme Court. There are many anomalies in the first draft which, government officials have time and again stressed, can be corrected.

What is needed, however, is proof that a citizen’s ancestors’ names were in the 1951 census, or in the electoral rolls, or land papers. All this was very well for the educated, even though many among them were running from pillar to post to get their long lost documents. However, for the poor and illiterate, these problems are often insurmountable. Many have no papers, neither are their names on voter lists nor are their forefathers registered.

While some of them may genuinely be foreign nationals, many genuine citizens, too, may not possess any documentary evidence to prove their citizenship. Harrowing tales are coming in every day of genuine Bengali speaking Muslims being targeted as foreign nationals. With the prevalent anti-immigrant mood in the state, officials are quick to band every Bengali-speaking Muslim as a Bangladeshi, provided the citizen does not possess the necessary documents.

The BJP’s support for the NRC is natural. No political party can object to illegal foreigners being sent out of the state. But for the BJP/RSS it is also part of their ideology; their belief that Muslims reproduce fast and should be stopped. If they are in Assam, the minorities will be thrown out.

Everyone knows how the system can discriminate against Muslims, and this is bound to happen. More stories of hapless Bengali Muslims will surface as cross verification by the officials of the NRC continues.

The fact is, the numbers of illegal entrants are not conclusive. The fact is, since the Assam agitation largescale migration from Bangladesh has not been easy. During the 1971 India-Pakistan war, refugees poured into the northeastern states of India and many stayed back in the country after Bangladesh was created. Hindus, especially, did not return. While the Assamese claim that immigration is continuing unabated, others say that if new settlers are spotted in a district, they are basically those moving from one part of the state to the other.

During British rule, the colonisers got hardworking Bengali Muslims into the Brahmaputra valley to clear Assam’s malarial swamps and turn them into fertile agricultural land. The valley has been converted into a rich rice bowl for the country. Much of the problem in the past was that the land holdings of indigenous Assamese were gradually reduced as more and more Bengali Muslims bought agricultural land in rural areas. Land is at the heart of the immigrant issue in Assam and it was also a plank on which the student movement got overwhelming support from both rural and urban areas. Essentially, assamese resentment against Bangladeshi Muslims stems from shrinking land holdings.

While the BJP has happily gone along with the AGP over Bengali Muslim immigrants, their views do not coincide on Hindu Bengalis.Anti-Bengali Hindu sentiment, too, is rampant in Assam. This is because Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that Bengali Hindu refugees from Bangladesh would always find a home in India. Some of them will also have to be accommodated in Assam.

Before the anti-immigrant agitation took the state by storm, clashes in Assam were mainly between the local Assamese and the Bengali-speaking settlers. Just after Independence, the Bengali-speaking population of the state, because of taking to an English education much earlier than citizens of other states of British India, held the majority of state and central government jobs.

At the time, this led to attacks on members of the community. While the numbers of Bengalis in Assam government rolls have hugely reduced, the animosity continues.

It was PM’s announcement that gave it a fresh spurt.

The NRC and its aftermath will take a toll on India’s cordial relations with Bangladesh. Dhaka, under Shiekh Hasina, has been an exemplary friend to India. At the end of the process of upgrading the NRC, what happens to those branded as foreigners, who must be repatriated? Dhaka’s position is that there is no illegal influx of Bangladeshis into India — that it will accept only those who New Delhi can prove are illegal immigrants.

So, what happens to these people? Will they become like the stateless Rohingyas of Myanmar who nobody wants to touch?

The NRC may just trigger a major humanitarian and diplomatic crisis in future.


Why retired Army officer in Assam was asked to prove Indian nationality
Between history's healed scars and freshly opened wounds in 'New India' lies the never-ending irony of identity crisis.
VARIETY |  7-minute read |   02-10-2017
Sanghamitra BaruahSANGHAMITRA BARUAH 
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In India, the election voter ID card cuts both ways. To acquire one you have to furnish proof of your citizenship, and to prove that you are a citizen of India, your voter ID card is enough. Of course, the much-debated Aadhaar may soon become the only identity card in future replacing all other types of I-cards, including the voter ID and PAN. But let's keep the validity of that "formal fallacy" for another time.

There is one more identity that makes you a proud, uncontested citizen of India - your badge of patriotism (read Hindu nationalism) and how high up on your chest you wear it. No other affiliation can undo the superiority of that identity. Not even if you have served as a soldier in the armed forces and risked your life for the nation. Your non-Hindu identity will make you as much an outsider as any other refugee.

And this is what has happened to a soldier who after serving in the Army for 30 years has been asked to prove his Indian citizenship in the state of Assam.

His "crime": his Muslim name - Mohammad Azmal Haque.

assam1_100217033343.jpg
Mohammad Azmal Haque (Photo courtesy: Family album/aljazeera.com)

The foreigners tribunal (Number 2) at Boko in Kamrup district of Assam reportedly issued a notice to Mohammad Azmal Haque, a junior commissioned officer who retired in 2016, following a police report that suspected him of illegally entering India from Bangladesh after 1971.

According to this report, Haque joined the Indian Army as a sepoy on September 13, 1986, and retired on September 13, 2016.

"It hurts to receive such a notice after serving and defending one's motherland for three decades," the ex-serviceman was quoted as saying by The Telegraph.

According to Haque, he received the notice asking him to appear before a local tribunal on October 13, with relevant documents to prove that he was not an illegal Bangladeshi migrant.

Notices similar to the one that placed Haque in the doubtful-voter category ('D' voter), he claims, have been served to 40 others from his native village.

"Considering the current situation in the state, I am forced to think that it had happened to me only because I belong to a particular community. Around 40 others from my village have been given such notices and I personally know that they are all Indian citizens," he added.

But this was not the first time he has been served with such a  notice. He claims to have received a similar notice in 2012 saying he was a doubtful voter. "...but I submitted all documents in the tribunal court and it had declared me as an Indian citizen," he said.

"Why do I have to be humiliated so many times? I request the prime minister, the president and the home minister to end this harassment of a proper citizen," Haque was quoted as saying by the PTI.

He said a notice was slapped on his wife also in 2012, but the "tribunal declared her an Indian citizen after she furnished proof".

For the record, Assam has 100 foreigners tribunals to detect illegal migrants. Under the 1985 Assam Accord, 1971 has been designated as the cut-off year. The tribunals have been entrusted with the task of detecting the "authenticity of a person claim to citizenship" based on police references.

While the Army has offered to provide the required assistance to Haque, when reporters contacted Assam DGP Mukesh Sahay over the controversy, he reasoned out that "receiving a notice doesn't mean that one has been branded an illegal migrant".

"When a court or foreigners tribunal issues notice to a person, it does not do so as to whether that person is an Army personnel or not. The onus to prove that one is an Indian citizen is on the person served with notice. It's a 2008 case and on October 3 when the court reopens, we will send for the documents."

"The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is being updated in Assam and it is a matter of procedure to asks for documents to prove one's citizenship," he told mediapersons.

Sahay is right. Of course, a notice asking to prove citizenship doesn't brand anyone an illegal migrant, but what he failed to reason out is that it also means that your identity has been questioned.

Even if we consider the tribunals are just doing their jobs, will a Bengali/Assamese/Hindi-speaking Hindu man who has served in the Army for three decades be asked to prove that he is not an illegal migrant? More so, when the "soldier" has become a stick for the chest-thumping hypernationalists to beat any anti-establishment voice. 

Is that not ground enough to feel discriminated against because of religion?

Between history's healed scars and freshly inflicted wounds in New India lies the never-ending irony of identity crisis, especially with the RSS-BJP narrative of Hindu nationalism.

The way the Assam DGP defended his force for "persecuting" an ex-serviceman on religious grounds couldn't be more indicative of the callousness with which the detection of illegal immigrants is being carried out.

The BJP came to power in Assam on the promise of flushing out Bangladeshis from the state where illegal infiltration has remained the most-contentious issue for decades. The BJP government also promised to seal the 263-km-long Indo-Bangladesh border.

(Assam shares only 263km of the 4,096km boundary between India and Bangladesh. Plans to erect a barbed wire fence along the entire stretch has remained incomplete for a long time. One of the reasons behind the delay is that about 44km of the border is porous - it passes through the Brahmaputra. While releasing the vision document in Guwahati ahead of Assembly elections, the BJP, however, had clarified that the border will be sealed in all places, except the riverine frontier where wires could not be put up.)

However, at the same time, the BJP decided to grant citizenship to Hindu refugees who migrated because of "religious persecution" - something that became a major poll plank of the party during the Assam Assembly election last year.

This announcement though didn't go down well with coalition partners, the AGP, which came into existence in 1985 after a six-year-long Assam Agitation against illegal infiltration of Bangladeshis. The AGP had clearly distanced itself on the issue saying the party doesn't distinguish between Hindu and Muslim immigrants.

There have been many incidents when "genuine" Indian citizens have complained of being harassed by police and other law enforcing agencies in the name of detecting illegal foreigners.

But this has happened not just during the current BJP rule. There also have been instances when government officials, including Assam police personnel belonging to the Muslim community, were enlisted as 'D' voters.

The most surprising were the cases when family members of Assamese actor of international repute, Adil Hussain, and Padma Shri Eli Ahmed were also branded as 'D' voters.

The BJP has also promised to complete the mega project to update the National Register of Citizenship, which began on 2015. However, fingers have been raised over the promise after the government missed the first deadline - December 2016 - and again the revised deadline of March 2017.

The government is now fighting hard not to miss the December 2017 (re-revised) deadline for completing the NRC in Assam.

The updated NRC is expected to include in the electoral roll the "names of persons or their descendants who appear in the NRC 1951, or in any of the electoral roll up to the midnight of March 24, 1971, or in any of the admissible documents issued up to the midnight of March 24, 1971".

While citizenship is a much-complicated issue, especially in Assam, it's strange that the Indian government has not been able to see the irony in the exercise. While the agency suspecting or accusing someone of being an illegal immigrant doesn't have to prove the basis of their allegation, the onus to prove that a person is not an illegal immigrant lies only on the accused. 

According to government data, there are 141,733 'D' voters in Assam. Interestingly, more than 92 per cent of the resolved cases of 'D' voters have been declared as genuine Indian nationals, according to a white paper published by the Assam government in 2012.

Whether Haque is an illegal migrant or a genuine Indian citizen will be decided by the tribunal, but the latest case also raises fingers over the army's recruitment, and thereby the entire government machinery. 

The onus is now on the Indian government and its bureaucracy to prove the "success" of Indian democracy.

In Assam, Indian Muslims are being abused as 'Bangladeshi'
The term has become an excuse to deny them rights and to commit atrocities.
POLITICS |  6-minute read |   17-08-2016
Aman WadudAMAN WADUD  @amanwadud
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On August 13, in a discussion in the Assam Assembly about eviction of illegal encroachers from government/khas/VGR/PGR lands, a Muslim Congress MLA was called a "Bangladeshi" by a BJP MLA.

Sherman Ali, the Congress MLA, was only trying to make his point that there are 1,30,000 families affected by erosion who could be occupying these lands and they should be properly rehabilitated instead of being indiscriminately evicted.

Ali was advocating for the most marginalised people of Assam who lost their homes to monstrous erosion of the Brahmaputra. Since Independence, more than 7 per cent of Assam's land mass has been eroded.

In the last ten years, more than 35 revenue villages got eroded by the Brahmaputra in Barpeta district alone. A very large number of affected people are Muslims.

On March 12, 2015, vide notification RGR 785/2014/6, the previous government had launched a special scheme to relocate and rehabilitate families affected by river erosion.

Also read: Assam’s political rhetoric over illegals is sending Indians to detention camps

Moreover the standing committee on works department recommended that erosion-affected homeless families should be rehabilitated before starting any effort to evict encroachers from government/khas/VGR/PGR lands.

Now, the BJP government has sent circulars to district administrations to evict encroachers from such lands.

The best answer BJP MLA Ramakanta Deuri had is to abuse the Muslim MLA as "Bangladeshi".

As India approached its 70th Independence Day, an Indian citizen who was constitutionally elected to the Assam Assembly was being abused as "Bangladeshi", because he spoke for landless people.

If a Muslim MLA can be abused as "Bangladeshi" inside the legislative assembly, imagine the condition of common Muslims in Assam.

Muslims comprise 34 per cent of Assam's total population. With abysmally low literacy and employment rate, many of them work as daily wage labourers, vegetable and fruit vendors, rickshaw-pullers and in other menial jobs.

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A relief camp in Kokrajhar.

These people who venture out to urban areas are being abused as "Bangladeshis" on a daily basis.

Mostly Assamese Muslims of Bengal origin face this humiliation; they are suspected citizens in their own motherland.

The daily wage labourers who construct roads and high-rise buildings are mostly Muslims, but their contribution towards building a modern Assam is rarely acknowledged, all they get in return is humiliation and harassment. They are stripped of their dignity every day.

The migration of Muslim peasants of Bengal origin started in the later part of the 19th century under the patronage of colonial administrators, according to a well thought-out colonial policy.

The British promoted such migration as they wanted the hardworking Bengali Muslim peasants to cultivate the barren and fertile land of the Brahmaputra valley.

They have enormously contributed towards agriculture and irrigation since then. The migration of these peasants was at its peak in the first three decades of the 20th century.

Also read: BJP wants to replicate Assam formula in Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls

Slowly, Muslims of Bengal origin got assimilated with Assamese culture and language and started calling themselves Assamese.

Post-Independence, during language movement, Assamese became the official language of Assam, mainly because Muslims of Bengal origin overwhelmingly accepted Assamese as their mother tongue to make it the language spoken by the majority people of Assam.

Muslims of Bengal origin even gave their blood for Assamese language. Today, in the entire area dominated by Muslims of Bengal origin, there is not even a single Bengali medium school.

The Muslims of Bengal origin sacrificed their mother tongue for Assamese language.

But no amount of sacrifice and contribution has stopped the daily humiliation they have to face.

MLA Sherman Ali from Baghbar LAC in Barpeta district scored the highest marks in the state in Assamese subjects in the HSCL examination (Assam Board) in the year 1983.

But even if he was not the highest scorer, even if he was an illiterate person, no one has any right to call an Indian citizen a "Bangladeshi". Nothing whatsoever can justify such humiliation of an Indian citizen.

The term "Bangladeshi" has become an excuse to deny even basic rights to Muslims and to commit worst atrocities against them.

Also read: What Bodos' latest attack in Kokrajhar means

Every time Muslims become victims of targeted mass violence, the murderers get away without punishment just by accusing the victims as "Bangladeshis".

On February 18, 1983, Independent India saw its worst massacre.

More than 3,000 Muslims were slaughtered in less than six hours in Nellie. A day before, around 500 Muslims were murdered on the small river island of Chaolkhuwa.

No one was ever punished, because the victims were branded "Bangladeshis", because they were seen as lesser Indian, lesser human.

The impunity didn't stop there. Mass violence against Muslims and Adivasis has become cyclic in Assam.

Hundreds of Muslims were killed in Kokrajhar (1993), Bashbari (1994), Udalguri (2008), Kokrajhar and Chirang (2012) and Narayanguri (2014).

Every time Muslims are killed and branded as "Bangladeshi", the debate immediately shifts from gross violation of human rights to illegal immigration.

Not just that, Muslims are being made "doubtful voters" and stripped of citizenship rights despite having all valid documents.

Even Bengali Hindus are victims of this menace, but now that Bengali Hindus who came to India on or before December 31, 2014, will be granted citizenship, they will be exempted from this humiliation - the only target will be the Muslims who have been here for generations.

Also read: Why floods in Assam and Bihar are worsening over time

The Border Police, which has presence in every police station and outpost in Assam, arbitrarily and without investigation sends "reference cases" against genuine Indian citizens to the Foreigners Tribunal to prove their citizenship under the Foreigners Act.

No wonder the majority of such "reference cases" are held as negative and the so-called suspected citizens are held as Indian citizens.

Those held as foreigners by the tribunal either don't appear before it and are thereby considered foreigners by ex-parte judgment, or are held as foreigners on frivolous ground such as minor anomalies in name and age in the voter list and other documents.

Many Indian citizens held as foreigners for these reasons are languishing in detention camps, without parole. Some might have to spend the rest of their lives in detention.

Most of these people are poor and illiterate, who hardly understand complex judicial procedures. They are damned as foreigners in their own motherland.

This way of branding and abusing Indian Muslims as Bangladeshis won't die out anytime soon as it provides rich dividend during elections.

In the last Assembly election, the BJP openly called Muslim-dominated constituencies as "seats dominated by Bangladeshi immigrants".

No wonder the 2016 Assembly election was one of the most polarised elections in the history of Assam, which BJP won by a thumping majority.


What Bodos' latest attack in Kokrajhar means
It is easy to attribute the shooting to intelligence failure. But that would be ignoring the complex environment prevailing in Assam.
POLITICS |  5-minute read |   06-08-2016
Colonel R HariharanCOLONEL R HARIHARAN  @colhari2
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Two to four Bodo militants travelling in an auto-rickshaw opened fire and killed 13 people and left 14 others wounded in the busy Friday market of Kokrajhar in Assam on August 5. Indian Army, paramilitary forces and the police are jointly carrying out search operations to apprehend the other militants, who threw a grenade and set fire to shops before fleeing the scene.

Army jawans present on the spot shot dead one of the militants armed with an AK-47 rifle. Mobile phone recovered from the dead militant showed probably he belonged to the hard line faction - the National Democratic Front of Bodoland-Songbijit (NDFB-S), though the organization quickly disowned the attack.  

assam11_080616012825.jpg
The Songbijit faction is only one carrying out insurgency now.

Songbijit Ingti Kathar, the military chief of the NDFB, broke away to form the NDFB-S faction in 2012 as he was against holding peace talks with the government mooted by the NDFB leadership. He has expressed his determination to carry on the armed struggle for the creation of independent Bodoland in an interview in 2013.

In all likelihood, Songbijit is sending a strong message with the latest attack in Kokrajhar that he might be down but not out, as the group had been on a low profile since 2015. However, NDFB-S should not be ignored as it is known to have connections across the border with the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) faction and Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) holed up in Myanmar. The other two factions - NDFB (Ranjan Daimary) and NDFB (Pro-talks) are observing ceasefire pending peace talks with the government.

The NDFB is one of the three proscribed insurgent groups in Assam; it had carried out sporadic attacks in the region along the north bank of Brahmaputra for the creation of an independent Bodoland. During its peak period of militancy between 1992 and 2001, the NDFB violence had resulted in the death of over 172 security forces and over 1200 civilians, while NDFB lost 370 cadres.

The Songbijit faction is only one carrying out insurgency now.

Doubts have been expressed about the involvement of NDFB-S because the attack was carried out brazenly in the style of jihadi militants.  Moreover, NDFB-S in the past had targeted only Muslims and Adivasis whereas those killed in Kokrajhar attack included six Bodos. But that would under estimating the possibility of Songbijit changing his tactics.

The NDFB-S is capable of vicious killings; it has been responsible for killing  about 100 people in a series of attacks carried out in the same region in May and December 2014. In the May 2014 attacks alone it had killed 32 Muslims who had been its main target.  

It is easy to attribute the latest attack to intelligence failure. But that would be ignoring the complex environment prevailing in Assam as a result of over five decades of insurgency. The state has seen the rise of nearly 60 militant groups in this period; out of this seven are active at present. Thirteen groups are either observing ceasefire or involved in peace talks, while 36 other outfits have become inactive.

Kokrajhar is in the heartland of Bodo tribals who number around a million. The headquarters of the Bodo Territorial Area Districts (BTAD), an autonomous administrative unit of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), created under the sixth schedule of the constitution, is located there. It was created in December 2003 after the state and central governments signed the Bodoland Accord with the biggest Bodo insurgent group -the Bodoland Liberation Tigers (BLT) in February 2003.  

The BTAD covers the districts of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri with a population of over three million people. It was created to fulfill the aspirations of Bodo tribals in habiting the neglected region to preserve their land rights and linguistic, socio-cultural and ethnic identity as well as to economically develop the region.

However, the creation of BTC did not satisfy the All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) and Bodo Peoples Action Council (BPAC) which had led a violent struggle for the creation of an independent Bodoland from March 1987 onwards. However, the creation of the BTC politically divided the Bodo community. The NDBF was a product of these divisions within the community.

The problems of the region are far from over although the BTAD's chief administrator Hagrama Mohilary was the head of the BLT militant group in the past. It had not been able to bring about the expected development in the region. The infrastructure development has not kept pace with the requirement of the difficult terrain crisscrossed by tributaries flowing into Brahmaputra.

The region has also been backlash against Bodo domination from other minority communities, particularly Muslims and Adivasis inhabiting the region. Muslims and Adivasis had raised their own militant groups to fight the Bodo militants; now they are observing ceasefire. This has enabled militant groups like the NDFB-S to survive and carryout sporadic violent activities.

It will be facetious to ignore the lingering insurgency problem in Assam. Unfortunately, despite all the lip service, the Northeast continues to be neglected and languishes on the periphery of the national mainstream. But things are changing now as many leaders with militancy background have joined mainstream politics in Assam. For instance, Naba Kumar Sarania, the independent MP elected from Kokrajhar, was a dreaded leader of the ULFA.

Unfortunately, we seem to forget that insurgency in the Northeast is a challenge not only to the state and central governments, but also the people of India as it is a vanguard to strategic security and remains our tenuous land link to Southeast Asia.



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 Colonel R Hariharan COLONEL R HARIHARAN @colhari2


Why retired Army officer in Assam was asked to prove Indian nationality
Between history's healed scars and freshly opened wounds in 'New India' lies the never-ending irony of identity crisis.
VARIETY |  7-minute read |   02-10-2017
Sanghamitra BaruahSANGHAMITRA BARUAH 
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In India, the election voter ID card cuts both ways. To acquire one you have to furnish proof of your citizenship, and to prove that you are a citizen of India, your voter ID card is enough. Of course, the much-debated Aadhaar may soon become the only identity card in future replacing all other types of I-cards, including the voter ID and PAN. But let's keep the validity of that "formal fallacy" for another time.

There is one more identity that makes you a proud, uncontested citizen of India - your badge of patriotism (read Hindu nationalism) and how high up on your chest you wear it. No other affiliation can undo the superiority of that identity. Not even if you have served as a soldier in the armed forces and risked your life for the nation. Your non-Hindu identity will make you as much an outsider as any other refugee.

And this is what has happened to a soldier who after serving in the Army for 30 years has been asked to prove his Indian citizenship in the state of Assam.

His "crime": his Muslim name - Mohammad Azmal Haque.

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Mohammad Azmal Haque (Photo courtesy: Family album/aljazeera.com)

The foreigners tribunal (Number 2) at Boko in Kamrup district of Assam reportedly issued a notice to Mohammad Azmal Haque, a junior commissioned officer who retired in 2016, following a police report that suspected him of illegally entering India from Bangladesh after 1971.

According to this report, Haque joined the Indian Army as a sepoy on September 13, 1986, and retired on September 13, 2016.

"It hurts to receive such a notice after serving and defending one's motherland for three decades," the ex-serviceman was quoted as saying by The Telegraph.

According to Haque, he received the notice asking him to appear before a local tribunal on October 13, with relevant documents to prove that he was not an illegal Bangladeshi migrant.

Notices similar to the one that placed Haque in the doubtful-voter category ('D' voter), he claims, have been served to 40 others from his native village.

"Considering the current situation in the state, I am forced to think that it had happened to me only because I belong to a particular community. Around 40 others from my village have been given such notices and I personally know that they are all Indian citizens," he added.

But this was not the first time he has been served with such a  notice. He claims to have received a similar notice in 2012 saying he was a doubtful voter. "...but I submitted all documents in the tribunal court and it had declared me as an Indian citizen," he said.

"Why do I have to be humiliated so many times? I request the prime minister, the president and the home minister to end this harassment of a proper citizen," Haque was quoted as saying by the PTI.

He said a notice was slapped on his wife also in 2012, but the "tribunal declared her an Indian citizen after she furnished proof".

For the record, Assam has 100 foreigners tribunals to detect illegal migrants. Under the 1985 Assam Accord, 1971 has been designated as the cut-off year. The tribunals have been entrusted with the task of detecting the "authenticity of a person claim to citizenship" based on police references.

While the Army has offered to provide the required assistance to Haque, when reporters contacted Assam DGP Mukesh Sahay over the controversy, he reasoned out that "receiving a notice doesn't mean that one has been branded an illegal migrant".

"When a court or foreigners tribunal issues notice to a person, it does not do so as to whether that person is an Army personnel or not. The onus to prove that one is an Indian citizen is on the person served with notice. It's a 2008 case and on October 3 when the court reopens, we will send for the documents."

"The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is being updated in Assam and it is a matter of procedure to asks for documents to prove one's citizenship," he told mediapersons.

Sahay is right. Of course, a notice asking to prove citizenship doesn't brand anyone an illegal migrant, but what he failed to reason out is that it also means that your identity has been questioned.

Even if we consider the tribunals are just doing their jobs, will a Bengali/Assamese/Hindi-speaking Hindu man who has served in the Army for three decades be asked to prove that he is not an illegal migrant? More so, when the "soldier" has become a stick for the chest-thumping hypernationalists to beat any anti-establishment voice. 

Is that not ground enough to feel discriminated against because of religion?

Between history's healed scars and freshly inflicted wounds in New India lies the never-ending irony of identity crisis, especially with the RSS-BJP narrative of Hindu nationalism.

The way the Assam DGP defended his force for "persecuting" an ex-serviceman on religious grounds couldn't be more indicative of the callousness with which the detection of illegal immigrants is being carried out.

The BJP came to power in Assam on the promise of flushing out Bangladeshis from the state where illegal infiltration has remained the most-contentious issue for decades. The BJP government also promised to seal the 263-km-long Indo-Bangladesh border.

(Assam shares only 263km of the 4,096km boundary between India and Bangladesh. Plans to erect a barbed wire fence along the entire stretch has remained incomplete for a long time. One of the reasons behind the delay is that about 44km of the border is porous - it passes through the Brahmaputra. While releasing the vision document in Guwahati ahead of Assembly elections, the BJP, however, had clarified that the border will be sealed in all places, except the riverine frontier where wires could not be put up.)

However, at the same time, the BJP decided to grant citizenship to Hindu refugees who migrated because of "religious persecution" - something that became a major poll plank of the party during the Assam Assembly election last year.

This announcement though didn't go down well with coalition partners, the AGP, which came into existence in 1985 after a six-year-long Assam Agitation against illegal infiltration of Bangladeshis. The AGP had clearly distanced itself on the issue saying the party doesn't distinguish between Hindu and Muslim immigrants.

There have been many incidents when "genuine" Indian citizens have complained of being harassed by police and other law enforcing agencies in the name of detecting illegal foreigners.

But this has happened not just during the current BJP rule. There also have been instances when government officials, including Assam police personnel belonging to the Muslim community, were enlisted as 'D' voters.

The most surprising were the cases when family members of Assamese actor of international repute, Adil Hussain, and Padma Shri Eli Ahmed were also branded as 'D' voters.

The BJP has also promised to complete the mega project to update the National Register of Citizenship, which began on 2015. However, fingers have been raised over the promise after the government missed the first deadline - December 2016 - and again the revised deadline of March 2017.

The government is now fighting hard not to miss the December 2017 (re-revised) deadline for completing the NRC in Assam.

The updated NRC is expected to include in the electoral roll the "names of persons or their descendants who appear in the NRC 1951, or in any of the electoral roll up to the midnight of March 24, 1971, or in any of the admissible documents issued up to the midnight of March 24, 1971".

While citizenship is a much-complicated issue, especially in Assam, it's strange that the Indian government has not been able to see the irony in the exercise. While the agency suspecting or accusing someone of being an illegal immigrant doesn't have to prove the basis of their allegation, the onus to prove that a person is not an illegal immigrant lies only on the accused. 

According to government data, there are 141,733 'D' voters in Assam. Interestingly, more than 92 per cent of the resolved cases of 'D' voters have been declared as genuine Indian nationals, according to a white paper published by the Assam government in 2012.

Whether Haque is an illegal migrant or a genuine Indian citizen will be decided by the tribunal, but the latest case also raises fingers over the army's recruitment, and thereby the entire government machinery. 

The onus is now on the Indian government and its bureaucracy to prove the "success" of Indian democracy.


Fear sweeps Assam over National Register of Citizens
Rahul Karmakar GUWAHATI,  JUNE 24, 2018 22:23 IST
UPDATED: JUNE 25, 2018 12:56 IST
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More complications: People waiting to check their names on the first draft of the NRC at Goroimari in Assam. File
More complications: People waiting to check their names on the first draft of the NRC at Goroimari in Assam. File   | Photo Credit: AFP

June 30 is the deadline for final draft
Of Assam’s 14 MPs, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief Badruddin Ajmal and his brother Sirajuddin Ajmal did not figure in the first draft of the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) published on December 31 last.

Also missing from the first draft containing 19 million names were at least 15 of Assam’s 126 MLAs. They included Badruddin Ajmal’s son Abdur Rahim Ajmal, who represents the AIUDF, perceived to be a pro-minority party, from the Jamunamukh constituency.

Off the list too were Boby Bhuyan Baruah, wife of separatist Paresh Baruah, who has been operating from neighbouring countries, including China, for three decades now, and their sons, Ankur and Akash. Baruah leads the United National Front of Asom-Independent.

The MPs and MLAs — including BJP’s Shiladitya Dev and Ashwini Rai Sarkar — and relatives of extremist leaders would rather wait for the final draft of the Supreme Court-monitored NRC to be out by the June 30 deadline. “The first list did not have my name despite my being an MLA for one term and an MP for two. The doors of the Supreme Court are open, in case the name does not show up,” the AIUDF chief said a few days ago.

The leaders are not worried. But the likes of Moinal Islam, a mason from near Chhaygaon, west of Guwahati, who has been at a loss to explain why his father adds ‘Sheikh’ to his name while he doesn’t, and Subhas Saha of western Assam’s Dhubri town, half of whose family were excluded from the first draft despite having lived there for almost a century, are worried by speculation that up to four million people — mostly Bengali Hindus and Muslims — would become stateless after June 30.

Misplaced fears: official
“These are misplaced fears. We cannot quantify at this moment, but the number of people who might get left out would be 50,000 at most. Even then, they will get an opportunity to prove their citizenship through claims and objections,” Prateek Hajela, State NRC Coordinator, told The Hindu.

As the deadline for the final draft nears, minority organisations have pointed out anomalies in the exercise that appears to be aimed at Bengali Hindus and Muslims.

“The NRC authorities are coming up with new rules, and officials on the ground are taking decisions that are different from what is on paper,” Azizur Rahman, convener of the Coordination Committee of Minority Organisations, Assam, said.

The committee represents 23 minority groups.

“Since the exercise is being monitored by the Supreme Court, no one can intervene. But the Assam government came out with new rules such as the one on May 2 making siblings of those marked foreigners ineligible for NRC updating. Such rules, if at all, should have been made before the exercise was undertaken. The complications are deliberate, aimed at harassing Bengali Hindus and Muslims,” Aminul Islam, AIDUF general secretary, said.

Court dismisses petition
On Friday, the Gauhati High Court dismissed a petition against the May 2 order on siblings of “declared foreigners”.

Dharmananda Deb of the Silchar-based Hindu Legal Cell said a slew of orders that had made the exercise for the final draft complicated were aimed at Bengali Hindus. “We were the main targets in 1979 when the D-voter (doubtful voter) issue cropped up. Almost 90% of D-voters and those in detention camps are Bengali Hindus,” he said.

“Bengali Hindus are likely to suffer this time too. Maybe, they will come up with D-NRC to keep harassing the common people,” Mr. Deb said. About 28% people in Assam are Bengali-speakers, a majority of them in Barak Valley where having the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 passed by Parliament before publication of the final NRC draft matters most. “If enacted after NRC, the Bill will have no meaning,” Mr. Deb said.

“The Bill is not acceptable because it will endanger the existence of the indigenous people, already burdened with waves of immigrants. It is against the secularism that the Constitution upholds and violates the provision of the 1985 Assam Accord that prescribes March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date for illegal migrants,” Samujjal Bhattacharyya, advisor of All Assam Students’ Union, said.