The North East Students' Organisation (NESO) and the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) said on Tuesday that they would protest if Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the State for the Khelo India Games 2020, scheduled from January 10.
The two influential students’ unions demanded scrapping of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, saying they could not allow “illegal Bangladeshis” to flood the region and rule over indigenous people.
“The Khelo India events starts in Assam from January 10. We welcome the sportspersons and others but if Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits, there will be protests, but in a non-violent manner. Do not treat Northeast people as second class citizens; we oppose the CAA,” Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharjya, adviser to the AASU, said at a press conference in Delhi.
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Sonowal’s betrayal
The two student bodies accused Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal of betraying the people of the State by supporting the new legislation.
Mr. Bhattacharjya asked whether the Prime Minister and Home Minister Amit Shah will allow illegal Pakistanis to enter Gujarat through the border “the way they are allowing Bangladeshis to come to Assam”.
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“CAA is communal, it is a protector of illegal Bangladeshis. Anti-CAA movement is not anti-national because it is a national movement. CAA is against the Constitution. We will continue our non-violent agitation against the new law till it is scrapped,” he said.
Mr. Bhattacharjya said the AASU and the NESO were non-political bodies and “we are not aligned with any political party; we are fighting for the nation, for the country, for the motherland.”
“All political parties have betrayed and failed the people of Assam. A class X student was killed but the Centre and State governments, the PM and Home Minister Amit Shah are mum. They switched off streetlights and killed them, can you believe this? We need help, save Assam, save Northeast,” he said.
He said there were 33 districts in Assam and seven were exempted from CAA as they fell in the Sixth Schedule (tribal) areas. “If CAA is not good for seven districts, how is it good for the rest of Assam?” Mr. Bhattacharya asked.
Burden of migrants
NESO Chairman Samuel B. Jyrwa and Secretary-General Sinam Prakash Singh said the new law will only add to the burden of illegal infiltration on the Northeast, which has taken the brunt of such migrants from 1947 to 1971. “Sonowal was given a mandate by the people of Assam with the hope that he will implement the 1985 Assam Accord under which any illegal immigrant, irrespective of religion, who entered India after 1971 has to be deported,” Mr. Bhattacharjya said.