Serpentine queues at government offices over NRC fear
People stood in serpentine overnight queues at the government, rural and civic body offices to obtain and get their personal documents rectified following the panic fuelled by “rumours” of an NRC exercise.
The panic is not limited to the districts. The number of people queuing up for birth certificates at the Kolkata Municpal Corporation office had more than doubled over the past few days.
The department is now receiving over 250 applications per day including elderly applicants who were born in the 1960s and ’70s .
“It could be due to fears over the NRC,” Deputy Mayor Atin Ghosh told IANS.
At Habra in the North 24 Parganas district, the Block Development Office was forced to be opened at 6 a.m. to cope with the pressure of a large number of people rishing in to rectify or get new ration cards.
The state government had announced that new and amended ration cards would be distributed till September 27.
As a large number of people had queued up since night, “we decided to open the office at 6 a.m. and it will continue till November 27,” said an official at the Habra 1 BDO office.
Earlier, eleven NRC-related deaths were reported from districts like Jalpaiguri, South Dinajpur and North 24 Parganas.
BJP president and Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the Lok Sabha polls had claimed several times the NRC exercise would be undertaken in Bengal, along with rest of the country.
In the final NRC list published on August 31 for Assam, a total of 3,11,21,004 persons are found eligible for inclusion in final list leaving out 19,06,657 persons, including those who did not submit their claims. The list is aimed at segregating Indian citizens living in Assam from those who had illegally entered the state from Bangladesh.
More content at The Siasat Daily
READ ON APP