GUWAHATI: With the Supreme Court set deadline for publication of the final draft of the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal chaired a high-level law and order review meeting here on Thursday night which was attended by the Joint Secretary (North East) of the Union Home Ministry, Satyendra Garg, state chief secretary T Y Das, state DGP Kuladhar Saikia and state coordinator of the NRC, Prateek Hajela among others.
All the Deputy Commissioners (DCs) and Superintendents of Police (SPs) of all the districts of the state were also called to the meeting that discussed in detail the security scenario in the state especially in the run up to publication of the final draft of the updated NRC, an official source said here.
The draft NRC is slated to be published on July 30 as per the directive of the Supreme Court that has been monitoring the entire NRC updating process taking midnight of March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date.
An official source informed that the close-door meeting held at the Administrative Staff College here discussed measures to be taken to facilitate security and safety to everyone in the aftermath of publication of the final draft of the updated NRC.
Meanwhile, additional companies of Central Armed Paramilitary Forces (CAPF) as sought by Assam government have arrived in the state for deployment to maintain law and order in the state in view of the publication of the final draft of the updated NRC.
The NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela reaffirmed that the final draft of the updated NRC would be published on July 30 and people can look for their names in the final draft in as many as five ways including SMS, NRC website, using mobile phone and in NRC Seva Kendras.
He reiterated that the NRC was not being updated on the basis of caste, creed, religion etc., of the citizens as alleged by certain quarters.
He reassured that there would be ample scope for genuine Indian Citizens to enlist their names even if names of some of them did not appear in the final draft.
