india

Updated: Oct 02, 2019 11:24 IST

Publication of the final list of National Register of Citizens (NRC) was expected to end the decades-old issue of illegal immigrants in Assam, but that didn’t happen.

Now several indigenous groups, student organizations, religious and literary bodies and NGOs want the NRC to have 1951 as the cut-off date to detect foreigners instead March 24, 1971.

The final NRC for Assam, published on August 31, had excluded 1.9 million of the 33 million applicants. Many political parties and groups have denounced the list saying it has included names of illegal immigrants while indigenous people have been left out.

“As in the rest of the country, we want 1951 as the cut-off date to detect foreigners in Assam instead of March 24, 1971, which was the date for the NRC process,” said Abhijeet Sharma president of Assam Public Works (APW), a Guwahati-based organization, recently.

Six years ago, the Supreme Court had ordered updating of the NRC, prepared in 1951 only for Assam, based on a petition by APW. The entire updating process was monitored by the apex court.

Unlike the rest of the country, the Assam Accord signed in 1985 after a violent six-year long anti-foreigner agitation, had kept March 24, 1971 (the day Bangladesh’s war for independence began) to detect illegal immigrants residing in Assam.

Over the past three decades several organizations in Assam have been opposing the difference in 20 years between the cut-off date for Assam and the rest of the country and with publication of the NRC final list in August the demand has grown shriller.

“While the entire country has a different cut-off date why Assam needs to bear burden of foreigners for 20 more years? We want a fresh NRC with 1951 as the deadline,” said Aditya Khaklari, general secretary of All Assam Tribal Sangha.

A resolution seeking 1951 as the cut-off date and fresh verification of NRC was taken by several groups, including Asom Sahitya Sabha, the state’s biggest literary body, and heads of two prominent Vaishnavite monasteries, at a citizens’ convention held in Guwahati on Sunday.

The convention stressed on the need for 100% house-to-house verification to detect illegal immigrants and also resolved to launch a mass awareness movement across Assam seeking change in the cut-off date.

Incidentally, a petition by Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha (ASM), an umbrella body of several indigenous organizations, seeking 1951 as the cut-off date for updating NRC is pending in Supreme Court since 2014.

The organization has maintained that the NRC list released on August 31 should not be considered as final as the SC is yet to deliver a verdict on its petition.