Assam: Video showing burnt papers outside circle office triggers panic

28 July 2018:

A video footage showing a heap of burnt papers outside the circle office in Central Assam’s Hojai on Saturday triggered panic among a section of applicants of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

They expressed the suspicion that the burnt papers were documents related to NRC.

Speaking to InsideNe, Hojai Deputy Commissioner Manabendra Pratap Singh, however, said newspapers, not NRC documents, were burnt. “The sweeper had thrown away some old newspapers. That’s it. No documents of NRC were affected anywhere,” he claimed.

What strengthened people’s suspicion was the timing of the incident. It occurred even as the state gears up to publish the complete draft of NRC on Monday.