Three days after attending a hearing in connection with the inclusion of names in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) final draft, a 90-year-old man, identified as Ashrab Ali, was found dead in Assam's Kamrup district on Sunday, 26 May, reported The Indian Express.
Over 40 lakh people, of which 36 lakh have filed claims for inclusion, were excluded from the final draft of NRC which was published in July 2018.
His relatives have alleged that the old man consumed poison as he was scared after the hearing. However, the police has not found any trace of poison near his body.
Speaking to the daily, Kamrup Additional SP Sanjib Saikia said, “It does not seem to be suicide. A post-mortem was conducted and the report is awaited.”
Ali’s relative Fazlur Rehman has said that his name was included in the final draft of the NRC which was published in 2018, however somebody had raised an objection against it following which he had to attend the hearing on 23 May.
“After the hearing, his biometrics were taken and that scared him because some people in the village told him that biometric details are taken from suspected foreigners whom police might put in a detention camp,” Rehman told The Indian Express.
Ali’s relative also added that before leaving from home he had taken some money on the pretext of buying food for children for Iftar. He said that the family suspects that he bought poison with that money.
Ali went missing on Saturday and his body was found on Sunday morning near a school in Boko.
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