India seeks to ease concerns on ‘citizens register’

NEW DELHI: India’s government sought Thursday to ease concerns about an imminent “citizens´ register” in the state of Assam that has left several million people, mostly Muslims, fearful of becoming stateless. A draft register last year left off more than four million people living in the north-eastern state, and India´s Hindu nationalist government has indicated it wants to replicate the process nationwide. “DO NOT BELIEVE RUMOURS ABOUT NRC,” a spokesperson for the Indian home ministry tweeted in capital letters, referring to the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) due to be published on Saturday. “Non-inclusion of a person´s name in NRC does NOT amount to his/her being declared a foreigner. Every individual left out from final NRC can appeal to Foreigners Tribunals, an increased number of which are being established,” the tweet added. Assam is an isolated state of 33 million people in the northeast of India, largely cut off from the rest of the country by Bangladesh, sparking a brutal war. Hundreds of thousands of people fled to India during the fighting.