NRC being wrongly linked with minority rights issue, disappointed: India at UN
India has voiced disappointment that the NRC in Assam is being "wrongly linked" with the minority rights issue and asserted that one should not jump to conclusions based on "incomplete understanding" after a UN expert raised alarm over a potential "humanitarian crisis" due to the exercise.
First Secretary in India's Permanent Mission to the UN Paulomi Tripathi said updating the National Registrar of Citizens (NRC) is a statutory, transparent and legal process mandated and monitored by the Supreme Court of India.
"The issue of National Registrar
of Citizens in the state of Assam in India is not an issue of rights of minorities. We are disappointed that this issue (is) being wrongly linked with the issue of minority rights. Minorities in India enjoy Constitutional safeguards, which are part of our fundamental rights and which are justiceable," Tripathi said at a session of the UN General Assembly's Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural).
Tripathi took the floor to respond to remarks made by UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Fernand de Varennes, who spoke about the NRC exercise being undertaken in Assam to document and identify illegal immigrants in the state. "I am saddened to raise the alarm that statelessness may in fact be increasing significantly in the coming years and even months," de Varennes said in his remarks to the General Assembly committee.