Committee demands implementation of Citizenship Amendment Bill; team to visit Delhi soon

The North East Linguistic and Ethnic Co-Ordination Committee, on Friday, staged a demonstration in Silchar demanding implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, introduced in the Lok Sabha in July 2016, aims to grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014.

The committee members converged in front of Khudiram Statue here around 2:30pm and raised slogans in support of the bill.

Santanu Naik, one of the members, said a representative team of the committee would soon go to Delhi and place their demand before the Centre.

“Those who came to this country due to religious persecution must be given citizenship and the government/Centre should take up the matter to implement the bill at the earliest” he said.

Another member Nihar Ranjan Das stressed that the bill be passed in the winter session of the Parliament. The government should think about the persecuted migrants and provide them citizenship, he said.

Among other members, Partha Chanda, Angshuman Bhattacharjee and Dharmananda Deb were present.

It may be mentioned that a joint parliamentary committee had visited Barak Valley last month to hear the views of stakeholders and interacted with 327 organisations during its two-day hearing over the issue.