Indian authorities should ensure that the process of documenting and updating the names of citizens in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was transparent and nondiscriminatory, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International India said today.
The potential exclusion of over 4 million people in Assam, many of them Muslims, from the draft NRC raised concerns over arbitrary detention and possible statelessness without due process, the global human rights body said.
The remarks came a day after names of over 4 million people in Assam were excluded from the draft NRC list, prepared following a long-drawn process to identify illegal Bangladeshis living in the state.
In a statement, it said the register only lists those people as citizens who can prove that they or their ancestors entered India before midnight on 24 March 1971, the eve of the war that led to the creation of Bangladesh.
The process to update the register was being monitored by the Supreme Court.
"Assam has long sought to preserve its ethnic identity, but rendering millions of people stateless is not the answer," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
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"Indian authorities need to move swiftly to ensure the rights of Muslims and other vulnerable communities in Assam are protected from statelessness," she said.
The government said that this was a draft list and those whose names are missing from the register would have until September 28 to seek a correction.
The Centre also said that after the final list was published in December, the applicants who were left out would have an opportunity to seek a correction from the Foreigners' Tribunals.
However, the government had not formulated an official policy for those people who are excluded from the NRC and declared foreigners by the tribunals.
"The NRC should not become a political tool to render stateless people who have been living in India for decades and have established strong links with the country, said Aakar Patel, Executive Director of Amnesty International India.
"During the process of claims and appeals, the state government should ensure that the people excluded from the NRC are not deprived of any government services, nor targeted or stigmatized in any manner," Patel said.