GUWAHATI: Many NRC applicants in Assam who had submitted refugee registration certificates to back their residency claims are in a fix after the authorities rejected 60 out of every 100 such documents on grounds of unavailability of corresponding records with the government to corroborate their authenticity.
“This is just a conservative estimate. The number could be higher,” said an official involved in the process of updating the NRC for the first time since 1951.
Refugee registration certificates were mainly submitted by descendants of refugees belonging to Bengali, Koch, Garo, Hajong and Dalu communities that are now spread across the state. Under NRC rules, a refugee registration certificate is among 15 documents that are accepted as proof of an applicant or the person’s ancestors being residents of Assam before midnight on March 24, 1971. This is the cut-off date for identifying illegal migrants, as stipulated in the Assam Accord of 1985.
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