Kolkata: Amidst fears that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) could be implemented in West Bengal hundreds of people Tuesday queued up at government and municipal offices here and across the state for necessary documents, while two persons allegedly committed suicide for failing to procure the requisite certificates to prove their citizenship, officials said. With the two suicides, the number of those dead in alleged fear over NRC rose to eight in West Bengal, according to the officials.
According to police the two – one 25-year-old man and another 50-year- old man committed suicide at Dhupguri and Jalpaiguri areas of north Bengal.
While one took his life by hanging himself the other had jumped into a well, the police said adding no suicide note was found.
“Family members and neighbours of both the men have claimed that they were depressed over not being able to gather proper documents needed to prove their citizenship. We have started an investigation into both the cases,” a senior West Bengal police official said.
The omission of a large number of Hindu Bengalis from the final NRC list in BJP-ruled Assam has evidently created fear among the people in West Bengal, which has seen influx of millions of people from Bangladesh.
The repeated assertions by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the Lok Sabha poll campaign that NRC would be implemented in West Bengal has apparently deepened the fear.
Large queues were seen outside Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) headquarters and other division offices in the city and BDO offices in other parts of the state as people waited for their turn in search of land and other necessary documents.
“I have come to the KMC office to collect my birth certificate as I had lost it long back. I have heard that we need to have our birth certificates to prove that we are citizens of this country in case NRC is implemented in Bengal,” said 75-year-old Ajit Ray, who was seen standing outside the KMC office in the city.
Fifty five-year-old Bimal Mondal was seen standing outside the land records department of KMC in search of documents of land procurement in the city by his parents five decades ago.
In rural Bengal similar picture was witnessed outside various government and panchayat offices. “What will we do if we are declared foreigners though we were born and brought up in this country? From where will I get documents of my father being born in this country,” 25-year-old Khalque Mollah of South 24 Parganas district asked.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government has time and again asserted that it will not allow implementation of the contentious NRC in the state. “We are requesting the people not to panic at all. There will be no NRC in Bengal. The TMC government will never allow it. As long as TMC government is in power not a single person will be touched,” Kolkata Mayor and senior minister Firhad Hakim told reporters.
PTI
