New Delhi: Union home minister Rajnath Singh along with Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal and other senior officials held a high level meeting on Monday to discuss the law and order situation in the state in view of preparations for the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) on July 31.
Assam witnessed a bomb explosion last week which is suspected to have been carried out by ULFA. Talking to media persons, Mr Sonowal said, “We did a detailed review on the present security scenario of Assam has taken place. We have also discussed about the possible situation which may arise after the publication of the final NRC. No genuine Indian should be worried about the outcome of the final NRC.’’ When the draft NRC was published on July 30, 2018, there was a huge controversy over the exclusion of 40.7 lakh people. The draft NRC included the names of 2.9 crore people out of the total 3.29 crore applications.
As many as 30 lakh of the 40.7 lakh people were left out of the NRC draft filed for inclusion of their names in the document. At the same time nearly, around 600 objections were submitted by individuals who suspect the citizenship of others who made it to the list.
The Supreme Court-monitored NRC exercise is largely aimed at identifying illegal immigrants in Assam which faced influx of people from Bangladesh since the early 20th century.
According to the 2011 census, Assam’s total population is over 3.11 crore. The process of identification of illegal immigrants in the state has been widely debated and is a contentious issue in state politics.
There was a six-year agitation demanding identification and deportation of illegal immigrants was launched by the All Assam Students Union in This resulted in signing of the Assam Accord on August 15, 1985, in presence of the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Earlier, the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had claimed that the NRC exercise was carried out with a “political motive” to divide people and warned that it would lead to “bloodbath” and a “civil war” in the country.
In view of the exclusion of over 40 lakh people in the draft NRC, Banerjee had also said those “Indian citizens have become refugees in their own land”. She had alleged the NRC was an “attempt to evict Bengalis from Assam”.
