After being previously denied police permission to hold a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the Assamese community in Pune finally staged their agitation on Wednesday under strict police vigilance.
More than 200 men and women, most of them working professionals, participated in the peaceful, hour-long protest which took place today morning at the city’s Sambhaji Park.
The protestors held placards bearing slogans like ‘Withdraw CAA, Save Assam from illegal migrants’ and ‘Give us back our peaceful Assam’.
“Assam's present condition is catastrophic. We want to preserve our identity. This is not about religion but about region,” said Tonmoy Goswami, one of the organisers of the protest.
“Lakhs [of] Bangladeshis entered India through different States. The media has created a misconception that the people of Assam are against the Hindu community... we are against illegal migrants from Bangladesh, be they Hindu or Muslim. Today, in almost 14 districts in the State the proportion of illegal migrants has exceeded that of the local, indigenous populace,” said Bidyut Saikia, remarking that the protesters did not want Assam as the next Tripura where the indigenous populace had become the minority.
Mr. Saikia further said that the agenda of the Pune Assamese community’s peaceful protest was simple and is based on some vital points irrespective of caste and religion.
“The indigenous people of Assam residing in Pune strongly opposes the CAA as this Act, which is forcibly imposed by the Centre upon us, endangers our culture and poses a threat to our existence. Secondly, as we have been repeatedly saying, the CAA denigrates the Assam Agitation (1979-85), an honorary movement for Assam in which 855 people sacrificed their lives in the hope of an ‘Infiltration Free Assam’. This had culminated with the signing of the Assam Accord of 1985 through which the people of Assam were promised that the illegal immigrants will be deported,” he said, remarking that it ought to be made very clear to the rest of the country where the Citizenship Act of 1955 applied for the State of Assam.
Shivam Kashyap, another agitator, observed that as India had not been a signatory to the UN Refugee Treaty of1951, the CAA was based on some vague political agenda of the Central government.
“It appears that the Centre is willing to give asylum to illegal immigrants which is completely unacceptable to the people of Assam,” he said.
The protest, which was to take place outside the city’s Fergusson College on December 15, was not given permission by the Deccan police station on grounds that it could lead to a possible law and order situation.
The organisers had ensured that those unaware of the police’s new directive were sent back from the protest venue.
Meanwhile, in a separate agitation, students of the Tuljapur campus (in Osmanabad district) of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) demonstrated against the CAA , singing protest songs and raising slogans inside the campus.
“We have been staging anti-CAA protests for the past three days… a hundred students participated in today’s demonstration while we plan to organise one outside the Osmanabad District Collectorate tomorrow,” said Rahul Ajith, a student.
Students of the Savitribai Phule Pune University will stage a candlelight march against the CAA later in the evening in which Maharashtra State Youth Congress chief Satyajeet Tambe will be taking part as well.
