Even as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee allayed fears of National Register for Citizens (NRC) being enforced in Bengal a mass phobia of losing citizenship claimed at least four lives in as many days, sources said, adding while one person in North Bengal committed suicide having failed to trace his land deeds and other documents three persons died of heartattack for the

same reasons.

The mass fear of NRC coincided with a Government drive to rectify voters’ ID cards and digital ration cards. Mistaking the Government move to rectify the cards for a lead-up to the invoking of the NRC dreaded for its track record in Assam, lakhs of people crowded in front of panchayat and BDO offices to get their particulars entered or rectified in their respective documents.

“One Annada Roy died committed suicide at Moynaguri in Jalpaiguri district after he failed to find out his land deeds — probably washed away in floods” — considered important for NRC, sources said. Mantu Sarkar at Balurghat died of heart attack as he too failed to trace his supportive documents and repeated visit to Government offices yielded no result.

Similarly Sahida Biwi of Hingalganj and Mantu Mandal of Matia in North 24 Parganas succumbed to heart attacks as they failed to get their ration cards done despite standing in long queues for the past several days, sources said.

Meanwhile, even as the Government opened special camps to handle overflowing crowd in all parts of the State the Chief Minister iterated in a tweet that there rectification of voters’ cards or ration

cards were just a routine procedure and had nothing to do with the NRC.

Banerjee who had repeatedly criticised the way NRC was invoked in Assam throwing out lakhs of Bengalis from the list said, “I can assure you that NRC will not happen in Bengal. We will not allow it come to this place. Bihar and other States have already rejected it and so have we.”

Accusing the BJP of using the NRC as a political tool to polarise the electorate she said, “It is only that the voter list is being renewed and ration cards are being digitised and corrected, so I would just ask to get these done and not panic for the NRC as we will not allow that to come in Bengal.”

She said, “For invoking NRC in Bengal they (BJP) will have to first kill me.”