The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) on Wednesday criticized Union home minister Amit Shah for discriminating the people of Assam on the basis of religion over Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.
Strongly criticising Shah and the ruling BJP, the general secretary of the influential student’s body, Lurin Jyoti Gogoi said that no violation of the Assam Accord will be accepted.
Gogoi warned the government not to play with the sentiments of the people of Assam and other states of the North East.
Democratic Movement
He said if the government goes ahead with it, the student body will launched a democratic movement.
“The bill will not be accepted. AASU will be forced to launch a democratic movement if the Centre tries to impose the bill against the wishes of the people. We will not accept violation of the Assam Accord,” he told The Telegraph.
What The Assam Accord says
The Assam Accord says all foreigners who came to Assam after March 24 midnight, 1971 – doesn’t discriminate between Hindus and Muslims.
“The Assam Accord asserts the foreigners should be detected and deported irrespective of their religion and AASU will not accept violation of the accord, he said.”
“The Centre’s move to give citizenship to foreigners on the basis of religion is unconstitutional as India is a secular country,” he added.
He said: “The bill will destroy the political rights, language and culture of the indigenous people of Assam and other states of the Northeast.”
Further adding, “Just because the ruling party has the majority in Parliament, it might try to pass the Bill forcibly. This is not a healthy sign for democracy.”
Amit Shah On CAB
Shah on Tuesday asserted in Kolkata that the Centre would bring the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill soon across the country.
He also made it clear that refugees belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Christian, Buddhist and some other religions will be not be asked to leave the country and be given citizenship Indian citizenship beforehand with the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.
“We will not allow any refugee to go and we will not allow any intruder to stay,” he said.
Over 19 lakh of Bengali Hindu, Koch Rajbonshi and Buddhist are excluded in the final national register of citizens (NRC) published on August 31.