Photo: Shaswati Das/MintGuwahati: With four million people in neighbouring Assam grappling with potential statelessness for not being able to prove their legacy, it has come to light that the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government maybe partially accountable for their plight. The West Bengal government did not provide details and did little to honour the request,” said a senior Assam government official, requesting anonymity. The process of digitizing the family tree for drafting the NRC required people to provide legacy details of their ancestors, which would then be tallied with the digitized records in Assam. “Before the computer generates the family tree, each applicant had to give the names of all siblings, descendants and ancestors. When quizzed, West Bengal officials denied any wrongdoing, and blamed the wear and tear of documents due to the passage of time.

Source: Mint August 01, 2018 16:30 UTC