NRC: Rantu Bagchi advised to take legal opinion by MP Dr. Rajdeep Roy

July 7: Home Minister Amit Shah’s assurance of inclusion of Hindu-Bengali’s in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) once the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is passed failed to arouse any hope among the family members of Sunirmal (Rantu) Bagchi. He had legacy in his own name, but inspite of them his name featured in the additional exclusion list of NRC which was published on 26 June.

On Saturday, Silchar MP Rajdeep Roy just after returning from New Delhi went to meet Mr. Bagchi at his Ambicapatty residence. Bagchi during his interaction with Dr. Roy expressed his displeasure on exclusion of his name from NRC despite providing legacy data in his own name. He had a prolonged discussion on this issue with Mr. Bagchi and advised him to resort to legal help. Rajdeep Roy assured Mr. Bagchi of all possible help and cooperation. But at the same time also advised him to take the opinion of legal experts.

Sunirmal Bagchi alias Rantu Bagchi was born on 21 September, 1943 at Silchar in Assam. He has in his possession birth certificate issued by Silchar Municipality. He has the legacy data of 1966 in his own name. It is in this backdrop that MP Roy accepted this as a blunder by the NRC authorities. He expressed the view that he has brought this aspect to the notice of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal. He candidly said that ways and means needs to be devised so that such type of severe errors could be positively addressed at the earliest.

It was learnt that the 76 year old Rantu Bagch’s name was there in the draft NRC but it was struck off from the additional exclusion list. He was served notice of ‘declared foreigner.’ On 5 July, Mr. Bagchi appeared at the NRC Seva Kendra at Kumbha and submitted relevant documents in support of his citizenship.

In the backdrop of such an erroneous task by the NRC authorities, concerned citizens of Barak Valley have expressed great displeasure. On condition of anonymity, a senior citizen from Silchar said, “How can we have faith and trust on the government when in front of our eyes genuine citizens are harassed intentionally for no fault of theirs. Is this for what our parents fought for the country’s freedom during the British era? Is this how a state would behave with people born and brought up in this country? Is this for what we have voted this government to power? One Assamese electronic media on 26 June, 2019 showed that 1 lakh people whose names were in the exclusion list are intruders/foreigners. We really are hurt at this and feel that it is an insult of our parents who sacrificed their lives for the independence of this country.”