NRC data help families unite after decades

Guwahati: The search of ‘legacy data’, the most essential component of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) update in Assam, has reunited a son with his estranged family after four decades. It also helped a woman meet her family after 25 years.
The NRC is a document containing names of Indian citizens prepared in 1951. Unique to the state of Assam, this document was prepared to distinguish Indian citizens from illegal migrants from then East Pakistan.The ongoing NRC update process will enlist names of genuine citizens based on NRC 1951 and electoral rolls up to the midnight of March 24, 1971.
At the age of eight, Manik Roy of Garukhuti village at Sipajhar in Darrang district left home 48 years ago, to acquire skills for a living.
Since then he had never visited his birthplace and settled down at Milanpalli in Tinsukia in upper Assam. But when he had to establish his linkage of forefathers to be included in the NRC list, Roy finally landed up at his village and met his family members.
“It was a different feeling. They (family) had thought that I might not be alive. I also became busy with my day-to-day work in Tinsukia. I thought my parents and other members might have shifted to some other place. Now I’m happy to have met them again,” Roy, who works as a house painter, told TOI.
It was a piece of paper where the address of his father was written that made it happen. “I don’t know why but I just kept this paper with me since I left home and it worked wonders for me now. I sent a letter containing my phone number though I was not really sure of its outcome,” he said.
Finally, his wait ended after his younger brother contacted him on June 7. His father, Hari Roy, had passed away in the early 1990s and his two younger brothers are now working.
“The place has changed a lot from what I can remember. My brothers and others want me to stay back here but I have to go back to Tinsukia as it has been my home for the last four decades,” Roy said.
Similar is the case of Bina Mazumdar of Sipajhar who eloped with her boyfriend to get married two decades ago. Mazumdar has finally met her family. Scared of facing her father and his anger, Mazumdar never dared to come back. For Bina’s niece, who had last met her when she was just three, her aunt was surely dead, until she met her last week. “I’m happy to be back with my family,” said Bina.