Northeast states up in arms over CAB

Guwahati: More than 100 civil society groups and North East Students Organisation (Neso) on Monday assembled at respective state capitals of northeastern states and registered their strong protest against the BJP’s move to reintroduce the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill during the winter session of Parliament.

Joint Committee on Prevention of illegal immigrants (NEFIP) Nagaland too has called for an 18-hour-long Nagaland bandh on Tuesday while deputy chief minister of Meghalaya, Prestone Tynsong, on Monday said that Union home minister Amit Shah would be visiting Shillong soon to hold a consultation with all the stakeholders.

He, however, clarified that the date for the visit of Union home minister was yet to be finalised.

Tension prevailed in most of the states on Monday following which Nagaland-based unit, North East Forum for Indigenous People (NEFIP), convened a meeting along with all the tribal bodies, business establishment organisations, Naga Mothers Organi-sation and many others to discuss the fall out of the CAB.

The Bill seeks to fast-track the process of granting citizenship to non-Muslims who have allegedly fled religious persecution from Afghani-stan, Bangladesh and Pakistan till December 31, 2014.

The Left Democratic Front, Assam, a coalition of nine political parties including the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Janata Dal (Secular) and Nationalist Congress Party, also staged the state-wide protest on Monday.

Spokesperson of the forum said, “The Bill is communal and anti-Assam, as it would render the expensive exercise of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) meaningless.”

About 30 organisations aligned with the All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu) and have chalked out a series of programmes for drumming up support against the push for the Bill to which they described — jatidhwangshi (race-destroying)

The Aasu which has been spearheading anti-foreigners movement in the state said that the six-year long Assam Agitation against illegal migrants would go waste if the Bill is passed by the Parliament.

The Assam Accord of August 1985 that put an end to the agitation had defined March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for detecting and deporting illegal migrants from Assam.

The Confederation of Meghalaya Social Organisations (CoMSO) and NEFIP on Monday launched — ‘stay-off-the-road’ protest in the state while the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) and Garo Students’ Union (GSU), affiliated to the North East Students’ Organisation (NESO) staged a sit-in demonstration in protest against the CAB at Additional Secretariat parking lot from 12 noon to 4 pm.