Goalpara Journalist Rinku Das and His Family Left Out of Final Assam NRC

Goalpara, September 1, 2019:

A prominent Assam journalist's family members were left out of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) draft that was published yesterday. Rinku Das, a journalist from Assam's Goalpara district, who is a correspondent of the News18 channel, along with his brother, Pinku Das, his son, Nick Das, and his niece, Jinti, have all been excluded from the list.

Speaking to Inside Northeast, Rinku's wife, Lina Das said, "We are under Ward No. 9 from where we got the legacy data of our grandfather, Niren Das. We submitted the legacy data and accordingly, the names of our family came in the NRC list. But soon after, the list came out, our family was called for hearing. First, we were called at Baihata, and then we were called at Sarthebari which we appeared accordingly. We took our children with us, but none of our documents were accepted."

"Now, the names of our children have been excluded and we were called for hearing at Belbari centre in Sarthebari. We were asked to appear at 1 pm, we waited till 4 pm but no one was there. Then we were moved to Circle Officer's office where we submitted all the documents. After that, none of our names came in the list. Now we are worried as none of our names have appeared. We are informed that we have to go through the FT and all of us know that it keeps calling for a number of hearings extending the process," she added.

Pinku Das, brother of the Goalpara journalist, expressed deep concern over the exclusion of the family's names in the NRC final draft. Pinku further questioned, "Why are we being excluded? Does this mean we are Bangladeshis?"

He further added that the entire family has been spending sleepless nights. "How can our father's name be excluded, whereas all our uncles' names are in the NRC list? Our father is also dead, and we have no one to turn to for help," he added.

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