House panel raises questions on Jammu & Kashmir situation, NRC aftermath in Assam

New Delhi: Members of the parliamentary standing committee on home affairs have asked the home secretary to apprise them of the situation in Jammu and Kashmir after the Centre withdrew special status to the state and bifurcated it into two Union territories. The members demanded to know the exact number of detentions, house arrests and number of habeas corpus cases filed since then, sources said.

Meeting for the first time under the chairmanship of Anand Sharma, standing committee members also demanded to know how educational institutions in the state were working in the present situation, details of government relief provided to youth, especially students and employees whose vocations were affected by the government imposed blackout and restrictions on email use.

The home ministry officials were asked to provide the committee with specific answers to queries from members. There are also indications that the committee could consider visiting J&K after October 21, by when the current laws are expected to be formally brought under the framework of the recent Parliament legislation.

“Members also raised important issues on Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and NRC in Assam,” an official release said after the meeting in New Delhi on Monday.

Some members were learnt to have raised the emerging situation in Assam after the implementation of the National Register of Citizens.

They demanded the home ministry response to various complaints of questionable omissions in NRC. To a specific query on whether there was a plan to conduct NRC across India, sources said, home ministry officials said the current NRC was Assam-specific and that the scheduled introduction of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Parliament will decide the future course. Many members expressed concern about the increasing law and order problem in Delhi and NCR. They also demanded to know how the government was dealing with incidents of floods in various states.