Allaying fears over the National Population Register (NPR), Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said no citizen will be marked ‘D’ or ‘doubtful’ during the updating exercise and no documents need to be furnished to prove citizenship. Also, it is not compulsory to provide any information not available with an individual, he said.
Shah gave the clarification during his reply to a debate oncommunal riots in Delhi which he said were triggered by alleged hate speechesmade after passing of the new citizenship law that gave non-Muslim illegalmigrants from neighbouring nations Indian citizenship. The updating of the NPRis to be done during six months beginning April 1 with enumerators seekingdemographic and other particulars of each family and individuals. On Delhiriots, Shah said the guilty, irrespective of political or religiousaffiliation, will not be spared. The guilty will be punished with the objectiveof instilling fear of law.
“No one from minority community should have any doubtregarding CAA and NPR,” he said.”Iwant to set the record straight. No document will be required to be furnishedin the NPR exercise. It wasn’t done in the past and it won’t be now.”