GENEVA     -   The UN refugee agency said Wednesday it was holding talks with India about its citizenship register in the border state of Assam, amid concerns that many people, the majority of them Muslims, could join the ranks of the world’s stateless. Nearly 2 million people were left off a list here of citizens released by Indian authorities on Aug. 31 in the northeastern state of Assam, after a mammoth years-long exercise to curb illegal immigration from neighbouring Muslim-majority Bangladesh. Those excluded had 120 days to prove their citizenship at regional quasi-judicial bodies known as foreigners’ tribunals. If ruled to be illegal immigrants there, they can then appeal to higher courts. “We have expressed concern that this exercise of verification of nationality may result in statelessness for some of the people,” Filippo Grandi, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said at a news conference. “The government of India has assured us that there is due process being put in place for these people to make recourse if their initial response was negative in terms of nationality,” he said. “We need to see what happens at the end of this process and whether there will be people still exposed to statelessness.