CAA effect in UP: ‘birth certificate rush’ begins; Muslims throng municipal corporations to get documents

The demand for birth certificates has gone up all of a sudden in Uttar Pradesh. In Lucknow, the number of birth certificates issued in December 2019 has gone up three times as compared to the same period last year. The Lucknow Municipal Corporation had issued 6193 certificates against 2012 issued in December 2018. Of this, 2130 were certificates of newborn babies while others were aged people, mostly of the minority community.

As the demand for certificates as gone up, the Municipal Corporations has started issuing the certificates at the zonal level too.

There is a mad rush of people, majority of them Muslims, who are thronging the Birth/death certificate counters across Uttar Pradesh to get the birth certificate. There is a fear that if NRC is implemented they will be thrown out of India or sent to the detention camp.

In Allahabad, the Allahabad Municipal Corporation is getting over 100 applications daily. Ninety per cent of them are of aged Muslims. Akram Ali, 50, a businessman, said that he never thought that he need a certificate to prove that he is an Indian. Modi hai to mumkin hai, he said.

• Hidayatullah, 63, a resident of Gorakhpur, the city to which Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath belongs, applied for birth certificate but the clerk said that Municipal Body did not issue birth certificates to person born before 1970.
• Sarfraz, 52, a resident of Agra has also applied for birth certificate in Agra municipal corporation. Fearing implementation of National Register of Citizenship across India, Sarfraz wants to have all the papers ready. He is yet to get the certificate.
• In Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, Ashfaq Ali, a weaver, has applied for the birth certificate. But he was denied the certificate because he does not know the exact date of birth. My school certificate says that I was born in July 1, 1963. At that time the deliveries were not institutionalized so I was born at home. But officials here say bring proof.

Sarfraz, in Agra, said that he was born in 1968. At that time no one cared for birth certificates. “Now, there is talk about NRC. People say it is against Muslims. If I do not get a certificate what will happen to me and my children?” he added.

“I am told that if I get a certificate that will ensure safety for my children and wife too. So, it is of paramount importance that I get the certificate at the earliest,” he said adding that till date he has not got the certificate though he is meeting the clerk regularly.