CPI(M) protests in Silchar, demands scrapping of bill, inclusion of genuine citizens' names in NRC

The Cachar district committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), on Monday, staged a protest in Silchar seeking fulfillment of various demands related to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

Both the issues — NRC and CAB — have been in talks among various circles in the country, especially in Assam and the Northeast, for the past one to two years.

The CPI(M) members, carrying placards, assembled near Khudiram statue at Club Road around 11:30pm on Monday and staged the demonstration. They raised slogans demanding inclusion of all genuine citizens in the NRC and scrapping of the citizenship bill. The members also stressed that the process of tagging people as D-voters should be stopped.

Dulal Mitra, general secretary of the CPI(M), said the citizenship bill, which aims to grant citizenship specifically on the basis of religion, should not be passed. “The bill has already caused unrest across the state. The situation is going to get more volatile if it gets passed, he said.

He said the process of updating the NRC has been going on quite smoothly, but the issue of the bill has deteriorated the situation in Assam. Certainly, the issue has created hatred and bitterness among different communities, he said.

The bill, which has been a bone of contention between Brahmaputra Valley and Barak Valley, endorses citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians who fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014. While the bill has found opposition in Brahmaputra Valley, the Bengali-dominated Barak Valley has strongly supported it, barring few organisations which are against it.

He also took a dig at the Narendra Modi government for not demolishing the detention camps in the state, despite promising during its campaign trail that detention camps in Assam would be destroyed if the BJP came to power.

“A large number of people in the state have been tagged as D-voters and thrown to detention camps over the past few years. This inhuman process must be stopped,” he said.

Supriyo Bhattacharjee, one of the protesters, said the contentious bill should not be passed or else it would trigger turmoil in the state. Besides, he pitched that all bona fide citizens should be included in the updated NRC.

The final draft NRC, published on July 30 last year, featured the names of around 2.89 crore citizens out of 3.29 crore citizens in Assam. Over 40.70 lakh citizens’ names were left out. The deadline for publishing the updated NRC is July 31, 2019.

The demonstration concluded around 12:45pm.