The recent Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) update has excluded more than 40 lakh people from the list, leaving them in the middle of nowhere, raising fear and suspicions of ruling party’s intentions to declare immigrants illegal.
In an exclusive interview with Sanjoy Hazarika, International Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, when asked about his opinion on the exercise taken up by the Government, he said, if such exercise has to be done on such a large scale the authorities should have ensured no confusion or fear will be caused among immigrants, but that, was not taken care of and as many as 40 lakh people have been left out, TOI reported.
When asked if this exercise was fair to be done decades after the Assam accord, Sanjoy says since the list is already prepared which was started years back by Congress, what are the solutions the government has decided on when we identify lakhs of immigrants since Bangladesh does not recognize this migration.
So what option do these illegal immigrants are left with after the list is completed and how fair is this exercise if a single Indian citizen is wrongly targeted since we have already seen too many cases where Individuals were left out while other family members were included.
With this resolution and amendment, Hindu immigrants who have illegally migrated after 1971 are given a citizenship route while Muslims are left out so how well is this resolution going to help, Sanjoy asks.