About 1000 families of Mizoram have refused to enroll themselves in the Census operation and the state government has requested the Centre to extend the deadline for 15 more days, in order to provide officials more time to persuade them.

The deadline for the completion of Census in the state ended on June 30.

"Though we are yet to receive any approval from the centre, we expect that the centre would ink its approval in view of the circumstances," the sources said.

Majority of these 1000 families of Christian dominated Mizoram refused to include their names in the National Population Register (NPR), taken up along with the Census, to prepare the Unique Identification number. They were afraid that they would be identified with the Biblical number of the Beast, the sources said.

The fear stems from Chapter 13 Verse 17 of the Book of Revelations in the Bible which says "... and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the Beast or the number of his name."

Now, according to adherents of the belief, since buying or selling of property made one a follower of the Beast, one having the UID card, which authorised property transactions, automatically made one a follower of the Devil.

The Unique Identification Authority of India has stipulated that none could buy or sell property without the Unique ID card.