Several students' organisations today took out a protest march, blocked the Nagaon-Morigaon road and burnt an effigy of Morigaon district Deputy Commissioner Hemen Das demanding his arrest for engaging a declared foreigner in the NRC updation process.
Members of the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP), Tiwa Yuba Chatra Parishad and All Koch Rajbongshi Students Union today took out a protest march in Morigaon town and blocked the Nagaon-Morigaon PWD road, official sources said.
The demonstrators shouted slogans against Morigaon DC Hemen Das accusing him of "safeguarding" the interests of illegal Bangladeshis in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) update process in Morigaon district.
The protestors also burnt Das' effigy.
Lalit Pachani, president of Morigaon district unit of AJYCP told reporters how a Bangladeshi -- Khairul Islam -- declared foreigner by the Foreigner Tribunal, Morigaon and Gauhati High Court, was entrusted with the NRC updation works in Kolmoubari NRC Seva Kendra (NSK).
Pachani also wondered how the names of 39 illegal Bangladeshi families in the district were included in the complete draft NRC published on July 30.
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The protestors demanded immediate punitive action against the DC of Morigaon and a thorough probe into the "gross anomalies" in the NRC update process in the district.
Khairul Islam, who was working as a government school teacher, was detained by police last night near Moirabari in Morigaon district, said Superintendent of Police Swapnanil Deka.
On August 13, the district administration, which had engaged Islam with the NRC work, had relieved him of his duties considering the sensitivities involved, said Morigaon DC Hemen Das.
The teacher was declared as a Bangladeshi citizen by the Foreigners Tribunal Morigaon in 2015. Islam had entered Assam after March 25, 1971 (the cut off year as per the Assam Accord for declaration of foreigner in Assam).
Following receipt of the Gauhati High Court verdict in June this year upholding the Foreigner's Tribunal Morigaon declaring him as foreigner, Police tracked down Islam and arrested him from Moirabari village, said Superintendent of Police Swapnanil Deka today.
As per the procedure, Islam will be sent to Foreigners Detention Camp in Goalpara district today, Deka added.
Khairul Islam was working as a teacher in Khandapukhuri Lower Primary School in the district and engaged by Morigaon district administration in Kolmoubari NRC, under Mikirbheta Police Station, as one among the over 40,000 government employees drawn from all departments to be deputed for NRC updation work across the state, official sources said.
The NRC is now being updated in Assam to include the names of those persons (or their descendants) who appear in the NRC, 1951, or in any of the Electoral Rolls or any admissible documents up to the midnight of 24 March, 1971.