Bulk NRC complaints filed in cyclostyled manner to harass people: Cong

Certain forces with vested interests have filed bulk complaints in a "cyclostyled manner" against people whose names have been included in the NRC to harass them because of their religious and linguistic identities, the Congress in Assam alleged on Friday.

According to media reports, only around 1,300 objections were filed till December 30, 2018, but the number rose to over 2.5 lakh the very next day, the last date for filing claims and objections, senior Congress leader Debabrata Saikia said.

But after raising objections, a large number of people were not attending the hearing, leaving people whose inclusion they had challenged in a quandary, Saikia, who met National Register of Citizens (NRC) State Coordinator Prateek Hajela and submitted a memorandum, said.

"We welcome genuine objections which have been filed against any ineligible person by following the due process of law. But it has come to our knowledge that a large number of objections have been filed in a cyclostyled manner," the leader of opposition in the Assam Assembly said in the memorandum.

These objections were evidently filed with a view to harassing genuine Indian citizens and derail the entire process of updating the NRC, Saikia asserted.

He demanded that the venues of hearing the claims and objections be fixed within the locality of the claimants and the persons facing objections.

The Congress also demanded that those objections, which lack particulars of the objectors, be rejected, details of the challengers be furnished in the notices and cases where they shun hearings be decided ex-parte and rejected.

Assam, which had faced an influx of people from Bangladesh since the early 20th century, is the only state to have an NRC, first prepared in 1951. Now it is being updated under the supervision of the Supreme Court.

The NRC aims to separate genuine citizens from illegal immigrants. The complete draft of the document, published in July 2018, had excluded 40.07 lakh names of the 3.29 crore applicants.

A window ending December 31, 2018 was provided for those who wanted to file claims for inclusion.

Within this period, people who suspected that foreigners had made their way to the list were also allowed to file their objections.

The final list is slated to be released by July 31.