FIRs lodged against Assam NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela for 'deliberate' exclusion of indigenous people from final list

Guwahati: Two FIRs have been lodged against Assam Coordinator of National Register of Citizens (NRC), Prateek Hajela, for “discrepancies” in the final updated list, police said on Thursday. A lawyer and indigenous Muslim students organisation – All Assam Goriya-Moriya Yuva Chatra Parishad (AAGMYCP) – filed separate FIRs against Hajela in Dibrugarh and Guwahati, they said. Chandan Mazumdar, whose name does not figure in the final NRC list, filed the complaint against Hajela at Dibrugarh police station on Wednesday, police said. [caption id=“attachment_4413215” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of NRC Assam coordinator Prateek Hajela. Reuters[/caption] Mazumdar alleged that despite submitting all documents his name did not feature in the updated NRC due to “inefficiency and criminal conspiracy of employees”. The FIR held Hajela responsible for “discrepancies”, as he was tasked with supervising the NRC updation exercise in Assam. Another complaint was lodged against the state coordinator at Guwahati’s Latasil police station on Tuesday by the AAGMYCP, claiming “deliberate” anomalies in the final list. “The names of many indigenous people were excluded from the list, and it was done deliberately by the NRC state coordinator,” the FIR filed by the students organisation said. The police, however, is yet to register a case based on the second FIR. Hajela was not available for comments, as he has been barred by the Supreme Court from speaking to the media. A third complaint was also filed by NGO Assam Public Works (APW) at Guwahati’s Geetanagar police station against three declared foreigners, whose names figured in the final NRC, and against the NRC authorities of Morigaon, who were allegedly responsible for including their names. The APW was the original petitioner in the Supreme Court, which led to the updation exercise of the NRC six years ago. A total of 3,30,27,661 people had applied to be included in the NRC. Of them, 3,11,21,004 have been included in the final document and 19,06,657 excluded, the NRC State Coordinator’s office had said on Saturday.