Assam: APW president files complaint against former NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela

GUWAHATI: Assam Public Works (APW) NGO, recently, lodged a complaint against Prateek Hajela, former coordinator of  National Register of Citizens (NRC) accusing him of manipulating the family tree verifications.

In the complaint, APW President Aabhijeet Sarma has claimed that Hajela and his close associates; in collaboration with some officers with migrant backgrounds, data entry operators and some Minority leaders and some anti National elements; used the government mechanism to include names of illegal migrants in the updated NRC.

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He added that several citizens filed complaints before the NRC authority highlighting the anomalies and the 'biasedness' of the verifying officers.

"Complaints from many citizens were filed before NRC authority that due to affinity towards their own community these verifying officers with the help of the DEO, both from the immigrant community , manipulated the Family tree verification to include the names of suspected foreigners in NRC draft", Sarma said in the complaint.

Further alleging the former coordination, Sarma said that the software use for the purpose of Family Tree matching was prepared by Hajela in such a way that no superior officers were able to make any quality check which according to Sarma gave a "free will" to the "officers with Minority background" to include names of suspected foreigners.

The APW president also mentioned the IA filed by the present coordinator of NRC where it was reported that 40% of the results were upload wrongly. Sarma said that this "cannot be treated as normal human error but was a  well planned, well coordinated effort to include underserving persons' name into NRC.

He further went on say that if the records of the officers and Data Entry Operators working in the 'immigrant dominated' areas are analyzed, the anomalies will come into light and the truth shall be unearthed.

Talking to InsideNE the APW President Aabhijeet Sharma, "new Chief Minister should take the responsibility of this issue. Also all the cases against Prateek Hazela should be made active"

He reiterated that reverification should be supported by the government and all the anomalies, right from inclusion of the names of illegal migrants to financial anomalies should be investigated.

"By making the report, we have already the paved the path for the government to carry out the investigation. Hence, it will be easy for the them to develop all the processes", he added.

InsideNE tried to reach the former NRC coordinater Prateek Hajela to record his reaction and opinion on the matter. However, there was no response from his side.

The final draft of National Register of Citizens (NRC)  published in 2019,  intended to identify legal residents and weed out illegal immigrants from Assam, excluded more than 19 lakh people from the updated NRC. Many among the left outs,  sulked into a state of identity crisis while some even succumbed to it. Even though the controversy pertaining to the registration seemed to be fading amid the pandemic, it was never lost or forgotten. 

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