ASSAM TIMES POST
Assam bandh will be observed along with the NESO sponsored
North East region 11-hour bandh on December 10
Guwahati : Accusing the Prime Minister Narendra Modi BJP government of “imposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill on the people of the North East region in the interest of its vote bank”, the influential All Assam Students Union (AASU) on Saturday said it’s movement against the contentious CAB will be intensified from today with a series of agitational programs.
AASU chief advisor Dr Samujjal Bhattacharya addressing a press conference here asserted, “the Modi government is imposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill on the people of the North East region in the interest of its vote bank. It wants to make the illegal Bangladeshis here Indian citizens to use them as their vote bank”. Bhattacharya informed that during its meeting with Central Home Minister Amit Shah a day prior to the Union Cabinet on December 5 cleared the Bill, the AASU had explained why 1971 should be the cut off year for detection of illegal foreigners in in the state as per the Assam Accord, 1985.
The Students Union told Shah that Assam can no longer take the burden of additional aliens come in upto December 2014 as it had already taken the burden of all come upto 1971 on behalf of the country, he said.
“If Indian citizenship is given to those already in the state, then more Bangladeshis will be encouraged to come in here. We won’t accept CAB that violates the Assam Accord”, said the leader of AASU that had sponsored the 6-year long anti-illegal foreigners Assam Agitation concluding with the Assam Accord in 1985.
“We cannot let the sacrifice of the 860 Assam Movement martyrs and of the hundreds rendered physically disabled to go waste by allowing the CAB to be implemented”, he added. AASU president Dipanka Nath also speaking said, “the CAB is communal and divisive as it grants Indian citizenship to people of certain religions goes against the secular principle of our Constitution. The BJP government wants to change the basic structure of the Constitution”.
On the centre stating CAB will not be operational in the NE states that have inner line permit (ILP) as well as in the 6th Schedule areas of Assam, Nath wondered, “if CAB is bad in those areas, then how is it good in rest of Assam”.
Charging the BJP government of disregarding the democratic movement against the Bill in the region by “Delhi’s fascist attitude proving it”, AASU general secretary Luringjyoti Gogoi asserted, “we will not allow the Centre to use us as guinea pigs and illegal foreigners to take away our rights.”
Giving details of its agitational programe, Gogoi said today and tomorrow fire torch light processions will be taken out in the evening across the state to create mass awareness against the CAB followed by burning of copies of the Bill and effigies of Prime Minister, Union Home minister and Chief Minister.
A spontaneous Assam bandh will be observed along with the NESO sponsored North East region 11-hour bandh on December 10 when lights will be lit on the Sahid Bedis (martyrs columns), a mass Gana Annashan (hunger strike) in Guwahati on December 13 followed by going to the villages and all areas from the next day to inform people about the CAB, he said.
