New York, Nov. 20 -- A US government commission has called the National Register of Citizens (NRC) a "downward trend in religious freedom" in India amid efforts to link Assam to the Kashmir issue.

In a brief released on Tuesday, the US International Commission on Religious Freedom (USICRF) said, "The NRC as a tool to target religious minorities and, in particular, to render Indian Muslims stateless has become one more example of the downward trend in religious freedom conditions within India."

The brief said that 1.9 million people in Assam were at risk of becoming stateless.

The brief is a part of the latest political push in the US against India over human rights to expand the campaign beyond the Kashmir issue to Assam using the NRC....