The political leaders and NGOs belonging to the Chakma community of Mizoram have sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to stop the “illegal National Register of Citizens (NRC)” being conducted by the Mizoram government to identify alleged “foreigners”.

The team, which submitted a joint memorandum to Modi on Monday, said the NRC was being conducted by the state government to “target” only the Chakmas.

It was led by chief executive member of the Chakma Autonomous District Council (CADC), Rashik Mohan Chakma. The team included BJP legislator Buddha Dhan Chakma, former minister and BJP national council member Nirupam Chakma and all the Chakma NGOs.

They said the state government was conducting the NRC survey from February 18 and had so far conducted the NRC which was “neither sanctioned by the Centre nor the Supreme Court in at least 14 Chakma-inhabited” villages in Mizoram’s Lunglei district.

They said no such survey was conducted in any village inhabited by the Mizos who are the majority community in the state.

On February 13, the Lunglei district administration had issued a notice to the village councils’ presidents asking them to participate in the “illegal NRC” under the garb of “verification and identification of unauthorised settlements” and provide accommodation, food besides translators to the survey team.

They said this NRC is “harsher” than Assam’s NRC.

“Hundreds of Chakma villagers had to stand in queues and fill up the ‘proforma for identification of recent settlers within Mizoram and verification of their nationality’ and provide their proof of citizenship documents like voter identity cards, Aadhaar card, educational certificates and information on past addresses along with the duly-filled survey form. Worst, the poor Chakma villagers had to provide food, accommodation and translators to the government officials from their own pockets,” the Chakma leaders said in their joint memorandum.

The team said the survey is a “racial profiling” of the Chakmas on the basis of their ethnicity and religion.

“The identification and detection of foreigners are being conducted only for the Chakmas and in Chakma-inhabited villages within Lunglei district of Mizoram. It is not being undertaken in any Mizo-inhabited village. Hence, it is nothing but racial profiling of the Chakmas on the basis of their ethnicity and religion as the survey form also asks to mention the ‘religion’ of the surveyees,” said the Chakma leaders in the statement.

They urged Modi to stand by his declaration at Ramlila ground in Delhi on December 22, 2019, that since his government came to power in 2014, “there has been no discussion on NRC anywhere”.

The Chakma political leaders and NGOs urged Modi to immediately intervene into the matter by asking Mizoram to stop the “illegal NRC”.

They also asked Modi to instruct Itanagar not to use the data/documents obtained during the “illegal NRC” for any purpose. They said a high-level central team should be sent to investigate the illegal NRC conducted to target the Chakma minorities who are predominantly Buddhists.