Previously, the All Assam Students Union (AASU) had emphasised economic reasons for the protests and had employed only nonviolent methods.
The Nellie massacre, a result of a buildup of resentment over immigration,[10] claimed the lives of at least 2,191 people, though unofficial figures run to more than 5,000.
[14] Samir Guha Roy of the Indian Statistical Institute called the government estimates of illegal Bangladeshis "motivatedly exaggerated".
After examining the population growth and demographic statistics, Roy instead states that a significant numbers of internal migration is sometimes falsely thought to be illegal immigrants.
[4] Most of the Bengali speaking people deported from Maharashtra as illegal immigrants are originally Indian citizens from West Bengal.
However, according to Prateek Hajela, the NRC's coordinator in Assam, the number of identified illegal immigrants in the state were "in thousands" after covering a third of the total population in 2016.