Citizenship Amendment Act protests Updates: After the union cabinet approved Rs 3,941.35 crore for updating the NPR on Tuesday, the Trinamool Congress said that BJP is trying to "fool and cheat" the people of the country as the population register is the "first step towards NRC".
Jharkhand chief minister-designate Hemant Soren on Tuesday said he will go through the details of the citizenship law and if even one person from his state is uprooted due to the amended legislation, then it will not be implemented.
Political scientist Yogendra Yadav slammed the government for claiming that the National Population Register was not linked to the National Register of Citizens. He shared the tweet of a journalist which referred to a reply given by MoS home in 2014 stating : "the government had decided to create the NRC based on the NPR by verifying the citizenship status of all individuals in the country. "
"Once again Govt caught red-handed lying brazenly," tweeted Yadav.
Responding to the claims made by Union Minister Prakash Javadekar and Home Minister Amit Shah about there being no links between the NPR and the NRC, the Congress cited the 2018-19 annual report of the home ministry which stated that the NPR is the first step of the NRC. The party also said that the same reply was given by former MoS for home Kiren Rijiju in the Rajya Sabha.
"There is no link between National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR)," said Home minister Amit Shah in an exclusive interview with ANI.
Seeking to allay fears about the NPR, the government said, "It’s a national population register, not a citizen register." Union minister Prakash Javadekar said every perosn living in India will be included in the exercise.
Addressing a press briefing, Union minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar said that NPR was started by the UPA govt in 2010 and updated in 2015. This will have to be updated every 10 years, he said. "Cabinet has approved the conducting of census of India 2021 and updating of National Population Register. It is self declaration, no document or bio-metric is required for it."
The NPR exercise will be held between April and September 2020 in all states and Union Territories except Assam, where the National Register of Citizens exercise to identify illegal migrants has already been conducted.
The Union Cabinet has approved the National Population Register, reports have said. According to NDTV, the Census Commission has said the objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every "usual resident" of the country. "The database will have demographic as well as biometric details. A "usual resident", for the NPR, is a person who has lived in an area for at least six months or more, or a person who intends to live in an area for the next six months or more. It is mandatory for every "usual resident" of India to register in the NPR."
Meanwhile, hours after BJP working president JP Nadda took out a march in Kolkata in support of the newly-enacted Citizenship law on Monday, the party's West Bengal vice president Chandra Kumar Bose raised his voice against the Act and said India is a country "open to all religions and communities". "If #CAA2019 is not related to any religion why are we stating – Hindu, Sikh, Buddha, Christians, Parsis and Jains only! Why not include #Muslims as well? Let's be transparent," Bose tweeted. "Don't equate India or compare it with any other nation – as it's a nation Open to all religions and communities," he said in another tweet.
"If Muslims are not being persecuted in their home country they would not come,so there's no harm in including them. However, this is not entirely true- what about Baluch who live in Pakistan & Afghanistan? What about Ahwadiyya in Pakistan?" Bose said.
Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka, who were scheduled to meet the kin of those killed in anti-Citizenship Act protests in Meerut, were stopped by Uttar Pradesh Police, CNN-News18 reported.
The leaders were on their way to visit the violence-hit state. The toll in violence that occurred during protests against the CAA in Meerut on Friday rose to five, a senior police official said on Sunday.
The Tis Hazari court in Delhi on Tuesday issued a notice to the Delhi Police on a bail petition filed by six of the 15 accused who were arrested after a protest in the Daryaganj area against the citizenship law turned violent on 20 December.
Special Additional Session Judge Satish Kumar sought response from the police and slated the matter for 28 December for further hearing.
Former Congress MP Saiduzzaman made some serious allegations against Uttar Pradesh Police’s action against protesters in Muzaffarnagar.
Taking a swipe at the government’s decision to “seize and auction” property of rioters to pay off the damages caused to public property, Saiduzzaman said that who will compensate the damage to private property caused due to police excesses.
Six of the 15 accused in the violence witnessed in Delhi's Daryaganj on 20 December filed bail applications before the Tis Hazari Sessions Court. The matter will be heard today.
Five 'miscreants' have been arrested over violent demonstrations in North east Delhi’s Seelampur area had happened on 17 December. Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will lead a protest rally from Swami Vivekananda residence to Gandhi Bhawan in Kolkata.
Prashant Kishor, political strategist, takes on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Citizenship Act and National Register of Citizens on Tuesday and asked to declare no implementation of CAA or NRC in Congress ruled states.
The internet services in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh will remain suspended till 8 pm on 25 December, District Magistrate, Abhishek Prakash, said on Monday.
The services were snapped in several cities in view of violent protests against the newly amended Citizenship Act last week.
Protests erupted in different parts of the country including Uttar Pradesh over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which grants Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh and came to India on or before 31 December, 2014.
Restrictions under Section-144 of CrPC has also been imposed in various parts of the state due to the prevailing law and order situation.

Representational image. ANI
A journalist and a lawyer were arrested in Barabanki for allegedly inciting people through social media against the contentious law, police said on Monday.
Kamran Alvi, a journalist with a local news channel, and Dilkash Rizvi, the lawyer, had been sent to jail, Superintendent of Police Akash Tomar said.
According to reports, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s (youth wing) has called a Darjeeling bandh on 29 December, against National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act. The bandh has been called by Binoy Tamang faction of GJM and the group has said that everything will remain shut in the Darjeeling hills on that day.
On 21 December, Rizvi tried to incite communal passion and the people against the new law through Facebook Live and Alvi too tried to incite people and trigger riots through social media.
"On Monday as well, they tried to incite a crowd at the local sugarcane office. Therefore, both were arrested," he said.
In Assam, the police has arrested 393 people for their alleged involvement in the recent violent incidents and provocative posts on social media during demonstrations that turned violent in the state in the second week of December.
While addressing a press conference on Monday, Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said a total of 244 cases were registered and 393 people were arrested by the police so far.
Five people were killed and over 100 people were injured in the violent incidents happened in Guwahati and other parts of Assam during the anti-CAA protests.
Himanta Biswa Sarma said that Assam police has noticed 206 offensive and provocative posts on social media from 9 December, 2019, and registered 28 cases for such offensive and provocative posts.
"Police had arrested 10 people in connection with their offensive posts on social media and out of them, five were released on bail and five sent to judicial custody," Sarma said.