CAA: Centre grants citizenship in 3 states

New Delhi: The Union government on Wednesday started granting citizenship under the CAA in West Bengal, Haryana, and Uttarakhand, the home ministry said.The applicants in the three states were granted citizenship on Wednesday by the respective State Empowered Committee, the ministry said in a statement.

The first set of citizenship certificates after the notification of the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024, granted by the Empowered Committee, Delhi, were handed over to the applicants in New Delhi by the Union home secretary on May 15. The CAA was enacted in December 2019 for granting Indian nationality to persecuted Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi, and Christian migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who came to India on or before December 31, 2014.

After the enactment, the CAA got the President's assent, but the rules under which Indian citizenship would be granted were issued on March 11, after a delay of over four years.

Earlier, on May 15, the first set of citizenship certificates under the CAA was issued by Union home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla to 14 people, nearly two months after the rules under the contentious law were notified to grant Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from three neighboring countries.

These applications were processed online through a designated portal, an official spokesperson had said. Describing it as a “historic day,” Union home minister Amit Shah said that the decades-long wait of those who faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan is over.

Shah also said that the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian brothers and sisters who fled religious persecution in the three countries have started getting Indian citizenship, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has fulfilled the promise made at the time of the country's independence.