The Census Directorate in Uttar Pradesh has decided to verify ‘wrong entries’ in two enumeration blocks in 16 Muslim concentration districts. There are some complaints that those recording “Islam” as their religion were clubbed under “others” during the census from February 9 to 28.
The districts are Rampur, Moradabad, Lucknow, Bijnore, Jyotiba Phule Nagar, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Balrampur, Meerut, Badaun, Aligarh, Varanasi, Faizabad, Azamgarh, Gorakhpur and Hamirpur. Officials said that after verification of the information recorded in “household schedules”, a status report would be sent to the Registrar General and Census Commissioner in New Delhi. Before the enumeration, some representatives of Muslim community had complained to the Registrar General of India (RGI) and Census Commissioner that “Islam” was their religion and not “Muslim”.
“The RGI had directed to write down ‘Islam’ as religion and assigned it code ‘2’, which is the same code as that for ‘Muslim’, if anyone said his or her religion was ‘Islam’. But after the completion of the census survey, some people complained that their religion had been wrongly recorded as ‘Muslim’, of ‘others’,” said an official at Census Directorate.