Patriotic People's Front Assam demands Govt accurate NRC with 1951 cut-off date

While expressing concern over a police complaint filed by National Register of Citizens (NRC) Assam coordinator Hitesh Deb Sarma against his predecessor Prateek Hajela for deceitfully including names of suspected individuals in the NRC through software tempering, the Patriotic People's Front Assam (PPFA) urges both the New Delhi and Dispur governments to support a complete re-verification of the NRC with the national cut-off date.

The fact that a senior government officer filed a FIR with the criminal investigation department against the former NRC State Coordinator was described as alarming by the forum of nationalist people.

The specific claim of unauthorised individuals being added to the list of Indian nationals via an error-prone technical method must be probed for a correct NRC under Supreme Court supervision. According to the forum, everyone who was allegedly involved in the unethical conduct should be scanned.

"We demand that the NRC Assam be completely re-verified with 1951 as the completed year. But, even if we have to accept the Assam Accord's cut-off date (March 24, 1971), the identification of individuals in those years for government records should be made," said a PPFA statement, adding that the indigenous population must come forward with their ultimate demand for an accurate (in the true sense of the term) NRC.

The forum argues that a State cannot, for any reason, use a year other than the national cut-off year to identify illegal migrants. The subject must be considered in Parliament before a definitive decision is made that Assam would keep its delayed cut-off year for identifying immigrants. As a result, it determined, the state's original residents must be preserved by legislative safeguards.