Asaduddin Owaisi for flag hoisting at charminar on Republic Day eve

Hyderabad: MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi on Satur-day announced that a protest meeting would be held at the historic Charminar on the night of January 25, the eve of the Republic Day, against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register for Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register. The National Flag will be hoisted at midnight.

He also announced that a rally would be held from Shastripuram in Hyderabad to Idgah Miralam on January 10.

While addressing a massive public meeting at Sangareddy organised against the CAA, NRC and the NPR, he said. “We want to send a message to the BJP government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah by hoisting the National Flag to mark Republic Day, that the entire nation is against to the draconian law.

Mr Owaisi asked people to make a one-minute video of them reading the Preamble of the Consti-tution and demanding that the Prime Minister scrap the CAA.

He wanted the videos to be circulated on social media platforms on January 26.

While slamming Mr Modi for talking about Pakistan, Mr Owaisi said in Telugu, “neeku, naaku Pakistan tho emi sambandham (In what way are you and I connected with Pakistan)?”

He said, “We are proud to be Indians. We Indian Muslims rejected the ideology of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Indian Muslims are in no way concerned or connected with Pakistan and we love our country.”

Mr Owaisi hit out at Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, telling him that he need not worry about Indian Muslims. “Worry for your country and save and protect the Sikhs,” he said.

Pointing out that the Uttar Pradesh government had served notices to attach the properties of those allegedly involved in the destruction of public property during the recent anti-CAA protests, Mr Owaisi asked the Prime Minister why he had not recovered damages from the Jats of Haryana who had damaged properties worth about `2,000 crore during the reservation agitation. He said they got away because they are in Hindus.

“In UP, just `14 lakh worth of property was damaged but the state government had served notice to Muslims under the Prevention of Destruction of Public Properties Act, 1984 even against those who are dead or are bed-ridden.”

He asked how could the government recover damage from a dead man.     

“Will they go into the grave of the dead for the recovery,” Mr Owaisi asked. He said Mr Modi and Mr Shah, after drawing the anger were saying the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will not be implemented right now, and asked them when they would bring it into force. “Did they say abhi nahi toh kabhi nahin (never, if not now),” he said.

Mr Owaisi demanded that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao stay the implementation of the NPR as was done by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

The MIM president said the movement against the CAA would continue so that they could achieve the goal of saving the nationfrom the divisive rule of the BJP.

Mr Owaisi said that the movement was to prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party from making India a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ and also save the secular credentials of the nation as the Constitution clearly says that India has no religion.