New Delhi: Replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, the Minister of State for the Ministry Of Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai, disclosed that a total of 802 people have been kept in detention centres in Assam, as of March 6, 2020.
Rai was responding to a query raised by SP’s Sukhram Singh Yadav. He had asked the government about the number of people in Assam who had failed to prove their citizenship and the number of people sent to detention centers.
In his written reply, Rai stated,
“The hard-copies of the supplementary list of inclusion and on-line family-wise list of exclusions was published on 31st August 2019 as per the directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court. A total of 3,11,21,004 persons were found eligible for inclusion in the final NRC, leaving out 19,06,657 persons.As on 06/03/2020, 802 persons have been kept in detention centres in Assam.”
There has also been a fair amount of commotion regarding the burden of proving citizenship and the documents that will be considered for discharging the same.
In this backdrop, Sukhram had sought the details of the documents which the Government considers to be legally valid for proving one’s citizenship, to which the Ministry responded in a mechanical manner.
“Acquisition of Indian Citizenship is governed by the provisions of The Citizenship Act, 1955 and rules made thereunder. Citizenship of India can be acquired by birth or descent or registration or naturalization or incorporation of territory,” it said.
–-Livelaw