NRC across country, RS told

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 20

Union Home Minister Amit Shah told the Rajya Sabha today that National Register of Citizens (NRC) would be implemented across the country and in Assam would be prepared afresh along when the national registry. Responding to a query during Question Hour, Shah clarified that NCR and the proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill were two different instrumentalities.

The latter was meant to relax rules of citizenship for non-Muslim immigrants — Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christans — who had migrated from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to escape religious persecution. The NRC in Assam, on the other hand, aimed to identify illegal immigrants who had entered the state and settled there after March 25, 1971. “No genuine persons will be left out of the NRC,” Shah stressed. He said the NRC exercise in Assam had been carried out at the behest of the Supreme Court. “Those whose names are missing may approach the Foreign Tribunals constituted at the district and tehsil headquarters. For those who don’t have the money to file pleas, the cost of hiring lawyers will be borne by the Assam Government.”