GUWAHATI: City-based NGO, Assam Public Works (APW) has lodged an FIR with the Crime Investigation Department against former National Register of Citizens (NRC), Assam coordinator, Prateek Hajela, accusing him of tampering with the final list of NRC published in August last year.
APW, which is the original petitioner in the Supreme Court which led to the process of updating the NRC six years back also accused Hajela of disobeying the orders of the Supreme Court, making a false document, causing forgery of public register and committing offences under cyber laws for altering the public records by misusing his powers and positions.
Addressing reporters here on Wednesday, APW president, Aabhijeet Sharma cited instances accusing that Hajela had entered the names of two illegal migrants in the final NRC and thereafter altered their status after publication of the news in the media apprehending that he might be caught red handed.
“From the conduct of Prateek Hajela (the then coordinator, NRC, Assam), it could be well understood that Hajela with the help of certain software, which were very much within his domain even after the final publication of NRC, used them to fulfil his vested interests by using official powers and position. We are apprehending that Hajela (the then coordinator, NRC, Assam) may have access over the data stored till today and may use the same for fulfilling his vested interest at any point of time,” APW stated in the FIR lodged with the DIG, CID here.
“We therefore request you to kindly register a case under provisions of law against Prateek Hajela for tampering with the valuable public records, such as NRC Final List of Assam and other appropriate provisions of law and also to conduct a further inquiry for his involvement in cyber crime in the whole process of NRC, Assam and thereby oblige,” the NGO stated in the FIR.
It may be mentioned that APW had earlier submitted a memorandum the newly-appointed Assam NRC coordinator, Hitesh Dev Sarma in December last year requesting a third-party audit of NRC software, application and IT infrastructure, and petitioning a high-level probe into alleged “financial irregularities” in the update of the citizens register in the state under the previous NRC authority.