Put on hold NRC update till cut-off date is decided: HYCP

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, April 20: The Assam chapter of the Hindu Yuva Chatra Parishad (HYCP) has expressed deep anger and discontentment over the role played by the Supreme Court bench on the ongoing update of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the State. It has appealed to the authorities to put on hold the ongoing NRC update work till the cutoff date is decided.

Addressing the media in Guwahati on Friday, HYCP president Balen Baisya and general secretary Dipankar Gohain jointly said that the whole process adopted to update the NRC is crafting a space to legalize illegal migrants and it is also legitimizing lakhs of foreign nationals who migrated to India from erstwhile East Pakistan between 1951 and 1971. They said that at a time when the constitutional validity of the Assam Accord and the cutoff date to deport the foreign nationals either based on 1971 or 1951 are sub judice, without waiting for the final ruling, the Justice RF Nariman and Justice Ranjan Gogoi bench of the Supreme Court is hastening the NRC updation based on the 1971 as the cut-off year.  Expressing suspicion over the groundwork, Baisaya and Gohain pleaded for a high-level investigation as panchayat papers have been accepted as supporting documents after clearly invalidating the same earlier. Questioning the Assam Accord as the basis of identifying foreign nationals, the executive duo said that the accord cannot be more acceptable than the Indian Constitution. Baisya and Guhain further said that such an accord to safeguard illegal migrants on the basis of the 1971 cutoff year was not signed sacrificing 855 martyrs. Hence, the duo appealed to the public not to call that the Assam Accord was signed in the value of 855 martyrs. Moreover, the duo appealed to the authority to put on hold the ongoing NRC update work till the final cutoff year to deport illegal migrants is decided.