'Citizenship Amendment Bill' passage marked by violent bandh in Assam

Guwahati: The normal life came to grinding halt in Assam and most of Northeastern states on Tuesday following the 11-hour bandh called by North East Students’ Organisation (NESO) in protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016.

In Assam the bandh called by All Assam Students Union (AASU), which crippled the normal life in Brahmaputra Valley, turned violent in different parts of the state where incidents of stone pelting, tyre burning, and occasional lathi charges were reported from various places. 

Thirty ethnic organisations also supported the bandh in Assam.

The citizenship bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 to grant Indian citizenship to people from minority communities - Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians - from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan after six years of residence in India instead of 12 even if they do not possess any proper document.

The AASU and other organization opposing the bill are saying that the provisions of the bill will nullify the 1985 Assam Accord, which provides for deportation of all illegal migrants, irrespective of religion, who had entered the state after March, 1971.

The bill has created an emotional upraise among the indigenous people of the state who accused the BJP of betraying them.

The anger against the BJP was such that protestors also attacked BJP offices at least at two places. The bandh supporters vandalize the office of BJP at Golaghat. Police and CRPF resorted to blank firing to control rampaging bandh enforcers in Dibrugarh.