Two officials caught taking bribe to include name in NRC list

Guwahati: Two officials involved in updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam were arrested on Thursday for allegedly accepting bribe to enter the name of an applicant in the final draft in the NRC.

A team of Anti-Corruption Bureau from the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption nabbed Syed Shahjahan, a field level officer in the act of accepting the bribe and Rahul Parasar, 27, an assistant local registrar of citizen registration, both of whom were posted at an NRC centre in Dispur locality of Guwahati.

Both the officials were arrested following a complaint by Kajari Ghosh Dutta, a resident of Ananda Nagar.  She had gone clear some discrepancy in the NRC lists for which a bribe of Rs 10,000 was demanded. A trap was set up by the team of the Anti-Corruption Bureau and Dutta showed up to pay the bribe. It was during this operation that the field level officer, Syed Shahjahan was arrested red handed

“The accused had demanded a bribe of Rs 10,000 for entering the name of the complainant in



the draft NRC. The accused had highlighted some technical defects in her application and demanded a bribe to enter her name in the final draft of NRC,” official police statement said.

"The ACB team laid a trap to nab the accused and caught them red-handed. The bribed money and the connected documents have been seized by the team from the office of the NRC Sewa Kendra," it also said.

Shahjahan was arrested while allegedly accepting Rs 10,000 from the complainant and Parasar was nabbed for for his alleged complicity with the other official in the crime.

The NRC, which was first prepared in 1951, is being updated in Assam in an effort to weed out illegal immigrants. The first draft released last year had excluded names of 40 lakh applicants.

The process is now being monitored by the Supreme Court since it has come under intense scrutiny over allegations that names of genuine citizens have been left out of the NRC list.

The final list of NRC will be published on July 31.