Recently news caught attention when ‘The Hindu’ reported about a man named Pawan Kumar Rathi. It was taken by surprise when his name got listed amongst the 1.02 lakh people filtered out of the NRC draft published on July 2018. An additional exclusion list came on June 26, 2019. The Rathis’ had settled down in southern Assam’s Silchar town from Bikaner district of Rajasthan even before Independence.

 Rathi’s family had enquired at the office of the Assam Police’s border wing but couldn’t found any ‘foreigner’ case registered against him. A person is declared foreigner by a Foreigners’ Tribunal after the border wing makes a case against him or her on suspicion of being a non-citizen.

He had rushed to his ancestral home in Bikaner’s Kalu, collected copies of all documents that he could find. He had got them signed by the village panchayats and returned on July 5 to appear for the hearing at the local NRC office. Even the panchayat leaders wondered how a man from the Marwari community could possibly be a foreigner.

He had submitted some 40 documents including copies of his passport, Aadhaar card, and other documents. The NRC officials said there must be some kind of mistake. None of his family members are in the excluded list.

According to the NRC officials, Rathi’s case could have been the result of local authorities in Rajasthan not verifying his documents on time. They claim to have sent all the application papers from other States to the respective authorities located at the places from where they have come from originally. In several cases, officials are yet to reply. The Supreme Court is keeping an eye on the NRC exercise whose deadline is July 31.