Thousands of people across Assam received re-verification notices on Saturday asking them to appear before the designated authorities, some hundreds of kilometres outside their home districts in the next 24 hours as against the earlier 15 day period, officials and recipients of the notices, said on Sunday.
Dorthy Suichang, additional deputy commissioner, Kamrup district, where about 25,000 notices have been issued, said, “The hearings are part of mopping up exercise.” Aditi Gogoi, Circle Officer of Chamaria in Kamrup district, said they have issued notices as directed by National Register of Citizens (NRC) office. “We just printed notices as they came to us from the state coordinator’s office,” she said.
State NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela did not respond to phone calls about the latest re-verification exercise being done less than a month before the final draft of the NRC is to be released on August 31.
The officials familiar with the developments said the notices follow state coordinator Hajela’s report to the SC where he said 27% reverification has already been done responding to state and Centre’s demand for 20% re-verification in border districts and districts having seen unusual population growth. The SC had turned out the demand of Assam government and the Centre citing Hajela’s report.