Assam: With as many as 40 lakh people excluded from the contentious final draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) published in 2018, Assam Public Works (APW) chairman Abhijit Sharma expressed his dissatisfaction and claimed that the final NRC - which is scheduled to be published in a few hours - was an "incomplete" one.
Sharma, who was one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court demanding the 1951 NRC to be updated, told ETV Bharat, "The NRC that will be published tomorrow, will be an incomplete NRC because two cases are currently being heard by the Constitution bench and until these cases are disposed off, NRC cannot be complete. It is not a complete NRC because it is being published without reverification."
Expressing his discontent over the NRC updating procedure, Sharma said, "Ten years ago, in our petition, we had said that the people who were provided shelter in India before 1971 should be declared Indian citizens. After ten years we are requesting that the names of the indigenous population must be included in the NRC, this is what bothers us."
Anticipating unrest in the state post the publication of the citizens' register, Sharma requested the people of the state not to get "violent".
He also said, “I have a request, you can take this as a warning also, to the East Pakistani people who came to Assam before 1971 not to support those whose names are not there in the NRC, particularly those who came to Assam after 1971.”
“Do not cry for them, don't go to help them,” added Sharma.
Also read: Assam NRC: MHA issues advisory, asks people not to believe in rumours
