Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to make indigenous people second-class citizens: NESO

Black Day today

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Demanding a judicial inquiry by a sitting judge of the Gauhati High Court to probe the recent police firing and atrocities on protestors against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in Tripura, the North East Students’ Organization (NESO) on Friday said the proposed legislation will render the indigenous people of the region second-class citizens.

The NESO will observe ‘black day’ across the region on Saturday in protest against the police atrocities on innocent protestors as well the Tripura Government’s ‘fascist’ act of preventing a NESO delegation from meeting the injured protestors on Friday.

NESO Advisor Samujjal Bhattacharjya, while addressing a press conference in the city on Friday, said the ugly face of the present regime in Tripura in treating indigenous people was thoroughly exposed when it used its police force to perpetrate inhuman atrocities on the protestors (indigenous Tripuris) against the Bill on January 8. While several protestors were injured, 18 of them sustained bullet injuries. The condition of five bullet-injured protestors is stated to be critical.

“The Tripura Government’s anti-indigenous stand has reached such a pass that it even dared to prevent a delegation of NESO from meeting the injured protestors on Friday. We won’t tolerate such acts of Tripura Government and warn it that it must stop treating indigenous Tripuris as second-class citizens,” Bhattacharjya said.

Bhattacharjya said other northeastern States, particularly Assam, will meet the same fate like that of Tripura and indigenous people will be rendered second-class citizens in the entire region once the Citizenship Bill is passed.

NESO president and secretary general Samuel Jewra and Sinam Prakash Singh said that the police atrocities on anti-Citizenship Bill protestors in Tripura was so inhuman that the cops even attacked the ambulances that were taking injured protestors to hospitals.

Also read: The North East Students Organization (NESO) calls for the extension of NRC to other NE states