ACKHSA stages protest against NRC update complexities

From Our Correspondent

Silchar, April 8: With a view to garner the support to fight the complexities associated with NRC update, ACKHSA held a sit-in demonstration in front of Khudiram statue here today.

The people from different walks of life participated in the protest programme that began at 11 am.

 ACKHSA adviser Rupam ndi Purkayastha said that they would not allow NRC update in Barak Valley if it is done keeping either 1951 or 1961 as base year. He said that the NRC should be updated keeping March 24, 1971 as cutoff date.

 Purkayastha pointed out that attempts are being made to deny the Bengali speaking populace of citizenship which can divide Assam and fears that the developments could lead to blood bath in Barak Valley in support of a separate state. He stressed that the conspiracy to redefine the Assamese identity by making the 1951 tiol Register of Citizens as the base year should be stopped at any cost. He said that ACKSHA favours the process of updating the NRC but the way the state government is playing into the hands of AASU and Assam Sahitya Sabha only spells trouble as a particular section is being targeted.

 ndi Purkyastha stressed that ACKSHA wants that the procedure to update the NRC in Assam should be carried out in accordance with modalities that have been decided for entire India. Why should a separate modality be in place for Assam? It cannot be accepted that bodies like AASU and Assam Sahitya Sabha is showing more ‘proactive’ than the state government regarding NRC. The student body made it clear that any attempt to deny citizenship to genuine Bengali speaking Indians will not be tolerated.

 ndi Purkayastha said that in order to combat the present complexities of NRC update, a writ petition has to be filed before the apex court highlighting different facts and figures. The registered organisations can only file such writ petition and the process involves lots of expenditure. The ACKHSA is not in a position to file the petition, but we want to inform the people that legal step is the only way to fight the NRC update complexities, he added.

 Pradip Kumar Deb, convener, Citizenship Preservation Struggle Committee, said that NRC is an important document which is reframed and renewed at periodic intervals throughout the country. But, the NRC for the state of Assam is proposed to be updated by 2016 whereas the same has been kept pending for other states of the country.

 “There are many intertiol pacts and tiol commitments that guarantee citizenships to the refugees of Assam, particularly those from Bangladesh, erstwhile Pakistan. But they are being unnecessarily harassed in the process of getting their mes recorded in the proposed NRC. The NRC should be updated keeping March 24, 1971 as the base year as mentioned in the Assam Accord,” said Deb.

 O Churamoni Singha, former principal of Gurucharan College, said that lakhs of citizens of Assam have been randomly and arbitrarily marked D against their mes in the voters’ list and in this way their rights to exercise their franchise in elections have been robbed off. Though the government has assured many a times to resolve the D voter issue, but lakhs of cases have been hanging in the foreigners’ tribul for the last eighteen years. “Without filly setting on their citizenship, how can NRC be prepared,” he asked?

A host of speakers spoke on the occasion.

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