GUWAHATI Sixteen years after a petition in the Supreme Court led to the exercise to update Assam’s list of citizens, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is back in the form of entertainment.

The trailer of Scam 2019, an Assamese web series based on alleged financial irregularities in the Supreme Court-monitored updating process that cost the government more than ₹1,600 crore, was released on Friday (June 6, 2025).

Aabhijeet Sharma, the producer and story writer of the web series, did the honours along with others involved with it. As the head of Assam Public Works, an NGO, he was the key person behind the 2009 petition in the Supreme Court seeking a mechanism to weed out “41 lakh illegal immigrants” from the State.

The NRC process began in 2013, with retired bureaucrat Prateek Hajela as its State Coordinator. The complete draft of the NRC, published in August 2019, excluded 19.06 lakh people out of 3.3 crore applicants for lack of documents to prove their citizenship.

Mr Sharma insisted Scam 2019 is a fictional account of a corrupt officer, who becomes involved in a massive scam when entrusted with the responsibility to preserve the identity and culture of Assam’s indigenous communities. “This scam not only leads to financial loss, but also triggers a multi-faceted crisis affecting the State’s physical, emotional, and cultural fabric,” he said.

Hitesh Dev Sarma, who succeeded Mr Hajela as the State NRC Coordinator, said the exercise was fraught with corruption, involving kickbacks and money laundering. He also accused his predecessor of fraudulently including the names of suspected foreigners in the updated NRC.

The trailer, however, indicates it is closer to reality than fiction. One of the main characters, played by popular actor Jatin Bora, is based on Mr Sharma and his activism.

The web series will stream on Red Cinemas 18+, an OTT platform with multilingual subtitles targeting regional and international audiences.

Apart from Mr Bora, the cast includes Bibhuti Bhushan Hazarika, Maytrayee Goswami, Manik Roy, Yankee Parasar, Bhabesh Das, Arsana Pujari, and R.K., who is also the director of the web series.

Bhaskar Deka has penned the screenplay and dialogues, while Bitul Das has handled the cinematography, Jhulan Krishna Mahanta the editing, and Rideep Das the music.