SC Directs Assam NRC Coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma to Explain his "Communal" Posts on Facebook

Guwahati, January 6, 2020:

The Supreme Court on Monday has directed the recently appointed Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma to explain the “communal” posts he had shared on his Facebook page, before his appointment.

It may be mentioned here that the new NRC coordinator had posted comments on Bangladeshi Muslims who have been residing in Assam and his comments had drawn wide criticism for their allegedly "communal" nature.

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A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde has asked for an explanation behind the comments from Hitesh Dev Sarma. The comments ranged from “I like Arnab Goswami’s logic. We cannot accept a foreigner as Indian even if he speaks Assamese” to “there are lakhs and lakhs of Bangladeshis in the NRC”.

Dev Sarma had also posted that the 'minority appeasement policy' for the last seven decades has changed the definition of 'secularism'.

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Hitesh Dev Sarma has been in the limelight for all the wrong reasons. From his leave right after his appointment as the NRC coordinator to his controversial statements, he has been making headlines since his name cropped up for the said position.

The Apex Court has also issued a notice to the central and state government of Assam on a related plea claiming that after the final NRC, children who were affected were sent to detention centres. The final NRC had excluded over 19 lakh people and the plea had claimed that the affected children were transferred to the detention centres spread out across the state.

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