Amidst the chief minister’s intervention into the crisis, hundreds of letters pertaining to Aadhaar deactivation started flooding. Most of them are by the Matuas in East and West Burdwan districts, where dozens of families have pressed the panic button.

Suprobhat Gayen, district president of All India Matua Mahasangha’s East Burdwan unit, said, “Most of the recipients of such fictitious letters in Jamalpur, Memari were from our communities. This we have guessed as ‘digital NRC’, an initial step purposely geared up to push back our men to Bangladesh.”

Today, at least 110 families residing in Kenna, Uday Pally, Bishnupur and Maheshdanga refugee colonies in Memari received Aadhar deactivation letters. Similarly, about 300 families in Gopalpur, Ayodhya and Mankar Panchayat areas in Kanksa and Galsi-1 block of West Burdwan suffered the same fate. Santosh Chatterjee, postmaster of Gopalpur post office, said, “On Friday and Saturday, we distributed 100 such letters booked in bulk by the Unique Identification Authority of India.”

At least 80 persons residing in villages such as Jaugram, Abujhati, Ajhapur in Jamalpur block of the district had received letters initially from the UIDAI’s Ranchi regional office that stated: “You haven’t complied with the basic entreaties requisite for staying in India.” The UIDAI communication maintained multiple issues for different people. For some, it mentioned: “You haven’t updated your Aadhaar database” and for some others it stated: “The tenure of your visa period for staying in India has expired,” and some received just a single line of information that read: “your Aadhaar card is deactivated”. The letters maintained the Rule 28-A of country’s Aadhaar (enrolment & update) Regulations- 2016′ while issuing such notices to the individuals. The help desk number of UIDAI’s Ranchi office meanwhile denied sending such letters and termed those as ‘might be fictitious or mischievous.’ The postal authorities said such letters were posted in bulk from the Business Post Centre (Pin-122016), Gurugram, Haryana but the envelopes were bearing printed sender’s address at Bangaluru (Pin-560001) leading to further ambiguity on the issue.

The East Burdwan district administration meanwhile has taken up the issue with serious concern. The DM, East Burdwan, Bidhan Chandra Roy said, “We are maintaining a vigil on the developments there and our officials in the field are visiting the families.” Alok Majhi, MLA, Jamalpur today visited the panicked families. He said, “I conveyed the message of our Didi, Mamata Banerjee to the families and assured them that our government will stand beside them out and out.”