BJP govt mulls over introduction of NRC to identify illegal migrants in K\'taka

Bengaluru: The BJP government in Karnataka is mulling introducing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the State, Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai said on Thursday.

"There is a very big talk going on regarding the implementation of NRC across India. Karnataka is one of the states where across the border people are coming and settling down. There are lot of issues here. Therefore we are collecting all the information, we will discuss with the Union Home Minister and then go ahead," Bommai told reporters here.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah had recently asserted that the NRC exercise will be conducted throughout India and all illegal immigrants thrown out of the country through legal means.

The Mamata Banerjee-headed TMC government in West Bengal had avowed that the NRC exercise will not be allowed in the state. On Wednesday Bommai had told reporters in Haveri that two meetings were held on rolling out the NRC, which has been accepted by a few states. He had said, "I've asked senior officials to study the law.In Bengaluru and other big cities, foreigners have come and settled. It has come to our notice they indulge in crime, and some of them have been arrested as well. We will take a clear decision (on NRC) this week."

When it was in the opposition, the BJP had been raising its voice on increasing number of Bangladeshi migrants in Bengaluru. In Assam, the only state in the country where the exercise was carried out to update the NRC, names of over 19 lakh people were omitted from the final list which was published on August 31.

Of them about 12 lakh are Hindus.

The NRC is "a must" for national security and will be implemented, Shah had recently said at Kolkata but made it clear that Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhist refugees will be accorded Indian citizenship beforehand with the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment)Bill.