Two days after Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami issued instructions to the state police to carry out a verification drive to “check the backgrounds of people who have settled in Uttarakhand but hail from different states,” 201 "suspicious" people have been identified, according to media reports.

The ‘suspicious’ people from other states were identified on April 21 by the police – the first day of a ten-day ‘verification’ drive being carried out across the state.

As per a Times of India report, the police claimed to have checked 4,094 ‘non-natives’ residing in the hill state, out of whom were “201 suspicious people, including 32 labourers, 97 hawkers and 46 tenants”.

The report stated, “Police officials said that preventive action has been taken against all 201 people.”

Giving a break-up of the background of the 4,094 people based on the data released by the state police, it said that while 1,770 were labourers, 1,043 were hawkers, 1,147 were tenants and 134 others.

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