This story is from July 28, 2018

Rights of people out of NRC will not be curtailed: Himanta Biswa Sarma

Rights of people out of NRC will not be curtailed: Himanta Biswa Sarma
Himanta Biswa Sarma
GUWAHATI: Forty eight hours before the announcement of the list of Indian citizens living in the state, the Assam government on Friday clarified that people whose names do not appear in the draft NRC will not be sent to detention camps as illegal immigrants and their rights and privileges will also not be curtailed.
"It is a draft list. No one will be sent to detention camps...
rights or privileges will not be taken away from them just because their names have not appeared in the draft NRC," said finance and health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
Sarma said these steps are being taken based on feedback received from people by the cabinet sub-committee. "People whose names are not included in the draft will get the opportunity to file claims and objections and seek redressal. This process of filing claims and objections will start immediately after the draft publication on July 30," he added.
The excluded people will have a second opportunity to approach the foreigners' tribunals if their claims are rejected and their names do not appear again in the final NRC, which will be published by this year-end. The tribunals will have the final say on citizenship.
Since 2015, the Registrar General of India is carrying out a mega exercise for updating the names of Indian citizens living in the state from the first enlisting done in 1951 with March 24, 1971 as the cutoff date. A total of 3.29 crore people have filed applications for inclusion of their names in the NRC. The first part of the draft, which was published on December 31 midnight, contained the names of 1.9 crore Indian citizens, leaving the rest for the next part, which will be published on July 30.

To keep the law and order situation under control, over 30,000 central armed paramilitary forces are being fanned out across the state that has long been plagued by an unknown number of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Assam Police have been carrying out community-based awareness programmes and keeping a strict watch on the social media to prevent trouble makers from creating any trouble.
Assam Police chief Kuladhar Saikia said, "We have put in place a sectoral plan to maintain law and order in the state. The SPs have prepared their own plans to maintain peace." He added, "We are not expecting any untoward situation post-NRC. We will not allow any person to disturb the atmosphere and all trouble makers will be dealt with severely."
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About the Author
Prabin Kalita

Prabin Kalita is a journalist at The Times of India and is currently the Chief of Bureau (northeast). He has been reporting in mainstream Indian national media since 2001. He has been a field journalist reporting gamut of issues from India’s northeastern region and major developments in neighbouring countries like Myanmar, China, Bhutan and Bangladesh concerning India and northeastern region. He has been covering insurgency—internal and cross-border, politics, natural calamities, environment etc. He is a post-graduate in Geological Sciences from Gauhati University.

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