Bengaluru: Citizens on Sunday staged a protest at the Mysore Bank Circle here against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), which is scheduled to be tabled in Parliament on Monday after the Union government approved it.
The protesters said CAB is aimed at destroying the secular foundations of the country, and maintained that the Constitution guarantees equality before law and prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. The CAB and the proposed all-India NRC will violate these provisions, they said.
“By offering citizenship to only non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, this Law has blatantly ignores the plight of persecuted Muslim minorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Sri Lankan Tamils, Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and many other persecuted communities in our region.
It ignores the reality, brought out starkly during the NRC exercise in Assam that many poor and vulnerable families lack proper documentation and are being incarcerated for this reason. Women who marry and leave their natal home, often with incomplete documentation, have been hit particularly hard, as have many displaced communities. Imagine the scale of suffering if this is implemented across India," the protestors said.
“We as citizens are against CAB and we oppose this draconian, inhuman, bigoted, unconstitutional and anti-Muslim Bill.
We demand that the Central government does not introduce the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the upcoming or any future sessions of Parliament and stop pursuing these cruel, discriminatory and unjust legislation that are against the values and ideals enshrined in the Constitution,” they said.
