Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Mizoram seeks extension of census enumeration drive

AIZAWL, July 7 (PTI) - The State government has requested the Centre to extend the census enumeration drive by 15 days in Mizoram to persuade about 1,000 families which have refused to enrol themselves.

The deadline for the completion of census in the State ended on June 30.

"Though we are yet to receive any approval from the Centre, we expect that the Centre would ink its approval in view of the circumstances," an official said.

Majority of these 1,000 families of Christian-dominated Mizoram have refused to include their names in the National Population Register (NPR), taken up along with the census to prepare the Unique Identification number. They were afraid that they would be identified with the Biblical number of the Beast, sources said.

The fear of being identified with the 'number of the beast' stems from the Bible's Revelation chapter 13 Verse 17.