Prateek Hajela was the face of the exercise to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) of 1951 in Assam for six years till November 2019. Less than three years later, this 1995-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre has been tagged an anti-national.
Hitesh Dev Sarma, Mr. Hajela’s successor as the State NRC Coordinator, had on May 19 lodged a first information report (FIR) with the Criminal Investigation Department seeking action against his predecessor for knowingly disobeying the law, intentionally avoiding mandatory quality checks in the process of updating the NRC and allowing declared foreigners, doubtful voters and their descendants to enlist their names.
