Assam has been ordered by Supreme Court to complete the first round of the citizenship exercise by Dec 31
At the stroke of midnight on December 31, almost two crore citizens of Assam would get legal status as the state government completes the first round of the citizenship exercise, but the centre is worried about the aftermath. Intelligence inputs have warned the state of backlash in districts along Meghalaya, West Bengal and Bangladesh border.
To assist the state government, the centre has rushed in almost 220 companies of paramilitary force. Even the state has mobilized almost 250 companies. In all, about 45,000 men in uniform have been deployed all over Assam to keep a check on law and order.
Sources in state government say that counter insurgency grid has been activated and the army is also on standby. "Apprehension is of mischief and that is why enough force has been put in place," a senior police officer in Assam told NDTV.
According to the police officer, recently a businessman who had employed local labour was heckled by a local vigilante group asking him to send his labour back as they were Bangladeshis. "We have sensitised everyone and have asked them to keep a check on local so called vigilante groups," he said.
The Home Ministry is also keeping a close watch on developments. "We have been asked to publish first draft of NRC by December 31. About 2.38 crore citizens would be verified in first draft," a senior ministry officer told NDTV.
"The actual figure depends on the work which has been accomplished. Aggregation work which was done at district levels is now being compiled," he says adding that process of publication has also started.
According to him, the first part of the draft would release on December 31 but those whose names are not there should not be worried. "There are many whose names would not be there in first part draft but that does not mean their names have been rejected, it just means that their names are pending further investigation," he explains.
According to estimates available with the Home Ministry, among applications yet to be verified are 47 lakh related to verification of family tree, 42 lakh verification of documents at the level of District Magistrate, and the remaining relate to certificates issued by gram panchayat, which the Guwahati High Court has rejected for National Register of Citizens or NRC update.
"These are those people whose verifications are pending either at some district magistrate level or panchayat level," an officer related to entire exercise explains.
The Home Ministry on its part also wants to assure that the exercise is being done in all fairness and would not target anyone based on caste and religion.
"Before the final draft would be published all claims and objections raised by everyone would be dealt with," said a senior Home Ministry official.
A close watch is being kept on social media platforms to check for inflammatory posts and hate comments which could vitiate law and order.
Assam has been on the boil over the issue of NRC updates for some time now. While the government claims it is an exercise to weed out illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, opposition parties and other sections argue that the NRC would end up denying voting rights to many legitimate Indian citizens.
But the centre hopes the NRC will help resolve the illegal migration issue troubling Assam for decades. Various political parties and citizens' groups are however pointing at different figures for the number of people who risk losing Indian citizenship.
This is not the first time this exercise is being done in Assam. "In 1951 it was done and that time also it became an emotive, political and demographic issue," confessed a senior minister in the government.
People can check first part draft online and the ones who have registered themselves would be getting SMS alerts too.
The Assam government had been ordered by the Supreme Court to complete the first round of the citizenship exercise by 31 December and come up with a list that could identify residents of Assam who have been able to establish their citizenship, and the rest.
The cut-off date is 1971 - anyone who came in before that is considered Indian; anyone after that is considered illegal, or a foreigner. Families have to prove they are descendants of a legal, pre-1971 resident of Assam.
An updated citizenship register was one of the promises made in the 1985 Assam Accord that wanted illegal immigrants from Bangladesh identified and pushed back. Like the rest of the country, the central government did use the 2011 headcount to build a population register of residents. But work to update the citizenship register was started only in 2015 and gained momentum only in 2016, promising to drive away the illegal Bangladeshis.
Nearly 3.25 crore people have submitted documents - estimated to be nearly 500 truckloads - for verification. Officials say they would be able to complete reverification of about 2.38 crore people.