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FIRs lodged against NRC coordinator Hajela

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 third complaint was filed by an NGO against three Bangladesh nationals declared as foreigners, who figure in the final NRC, and against the NRC authorities of Morigaon district, who were allegedly responsible for including their names. A lawyer and indigenous Muslim students organisation -- All Assam Goriya-Moriya Yuva Chatra Parishad (AAGMYCP) -- filed separate FIRs against Hajela in Dibrugarh and Guwahati, police 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.

Mazumdar alleged that he had submitted all documents, but his name was not included 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 this FIR. Hajela was not available for comments, as he has been barred by the Supreme Court from speaking to the media.

On Thursday, NGO Assam Public Works (APW) lodged the FIR at Guwahati's Geetanagar police station against the trio, who were declared as foreigners under Section 2(a) of the Foreigners' Act, 1946 by the Morigaon Foreigners' Tribunal in 2016. The NGO was the original petitioner in the Supreme Court, which led to the updation of the NRC six years ago.

APW general secretary Dhrubajyoti Talukdar called for a police investigation into how their names were included in the final NRC.

"Is there a long-term agenda behind this, which could pose a threat to internal security and sovereignty of the country?" Talukdar said. 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 document and 19,06,657 excluded, the NRC State Coordinator's office had said on August 31.

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