GUWAHATI
A former State Coordinator of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam has flagged grave anomalies in the NRC updating exercise that has been paused since August 2019.
In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 18, Hitesh Dev Sarma underscored several errors in the updating process, which he claimed could compromise national security.
Mr. Sarma succeeded Prateek Hajela, an IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, as the State Coordinator after the Supreme Court transferred him to Madhya Pradesh, his home State, in October 2019.
Mr. Hajela was allowed voluntary retirement in August 2023.
Mr. Sarma said he found the NRC updating process full of errors that could “jeopardise the security” of the nation. The discrepancies, he wrote, included the names of lakhs of people who were not original residents of Assam but were incorrectly registered in the updated NRC.
He outlined the verification process of the exercise as particularly alarming. The names of 13,18,639 people were included in the NRC although they did not possess valid documents according to the reports of the issuing authorities, he wrote.
This story was originally published in thehindu.com. Read the full story here.
