Citizens to fight, boycott CAA, NRC

Hyderabad: Social and community organisations have decided to adopt an approach of educating, agitating and boycotting of the National Register of Citizens.

A discussion was held against the backdrop of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the anti-National Register of Citizen (NRC) protest at Masab Tank, organised by Tehreek Muslim Shabban (TMS) on Thursday. It was decided to stage a mega protest in Hyderabad either on Saturday or Sunday.

A joint action committee consisting of representatives from various organisations and individuals was constituted.

Participating in the discussion, former High Court judge Justice Chandra Kumar said the government was playing the Hindu-Muslim game. Whenever the people start realising the failures of the government, the ruling class tries to play with the sentiments of the people. For the first time in history, Indian society has been divided vertically, which was not the case even after the partition of the country, the Sikh riots and the Gujarat riots.

Former minister Moham-med Ali Shabbir demanded that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, convene a special session of the legislative Assembly to pass a resolution rejecting the CAA and the NRC.

He said the CAA is unconstitutional and it would be proved in the Supreme Court. He said that the BJP has tried to kill the very spirit of the Constitution by linking citizenship with religion. The CAA was inspired by the ideology of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar who wrote a book Hindutva in 1917 and published it in 1923.

Mr Mushtaq Malik, president, TMS, said that CAA and NRC are interlinked. “The purpose of bringing amendments into the Citizenship Act will appear if we link it to the NRC,” he said.

Dr Asma Zehra, convener, women’s wing, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, said the people had gathered on a common platform to save the Constitution, which is under severe threat. “We have to chalk out a long-term strategy to combat the evil designs of the government,” she said.

Dr Kumar of the All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation said the BJP government wanted to grab power by projecting Muslims as enemies and enslaving them. “SCs, STs, BCs and the majority of Muslims are the original inhabitants of India, while the Brahmins are the intruders who have a Zionist mentality,” he said.