The Indian state of Assam published on Saturday the updated Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) final list 2019 online in which 1.9 million citizenship of people has been stripped off.
The NRC is a list of people who can prove they came to the state by March 24,1971. According to a statement from the Assam government, 31.1 million people were included while 1.9 million people were left out. The people included in the list will now be deemed legal and rightful citizens of India.
While those people excluded from the list face the possibility of statelessness and being put indefinitely into camps or deported. However, the government has vowed to provide them with legal assistance to fight their case.
Barpeta: People queue up outside a NRC Seva Kendra to check their name in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) final list. A total of 3,11,21,004 persons have been found eligible for inclusion in final list leaving out 19,06,657 people. #Assam pic.twitter.com/QtkrWWI9QB
— ANI (@ANI) August 31, 2019
Assam, which is an isolated state of 33 million, has long seen large influxes from elsewhere including during British colonial rule and around the 1971 war of independence in neighbouring Bangladesh. A third of Assam's 33 million residents are Muslims, the second-highest number after Indian-occupied Kashmir.
— NRC Updation Assam (@NRCupdateAssam) August 31, 2019