Women perform naam-prasanga in protest against CAA at Udalguri

A Correspondent

TANGLA: More than 2,000 women comprising senior citizens, housewives, teachers, and students, along with activists of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), staged a sit-in and performed naam-prasanga (community prayer) against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act at Tangla town in Udalguri district on Saturday.

The women protesters, with gamusas around their necks, sat on the floor and performed naam-prasanga and raised high-pitched slogans against the government, the CAA and the supporters of illegal immigrants. A school student, Nazrul Islam also recited a self-composed protest poem on the occasion.

A women protester, Madhusmita Mazumdar said, “The Citizenship (Amendment) Act is a threat to the indigenous identity of the Assamese and a ploy to divide people. If this Act is implemented we will become a minority in our own land.”

Sabnam Rahman, another woman protester, said that through the amendment in the Citizenship Act, the government had attacked the soul of the people of Assam. “We will never accept this and that’s why people from all walks of life, old and young alike, have gathered here. People don’t want this law,” she said.

A sexagenarian women protester, Sanika Deka said, “The protest against CAA is not only restricted to Assam now, but the nation is also awake and is against the law.” She further observed that the people of Assam had great aspirations and hopes that the apex court would give justice to the people of Assam by exempting Assam from the purview of the Act.

Tangla chapter AASU president Pranjal Deka said, “The BJP and its allies - the AGP and BPF - will never be forgiven by the people of Assam whom they have betrayed by lending support to the Act which is detrimental to the cause of Assam and Assamese and it violates the basic principles of the Constitution. It also violates the clauses of the Assam Accord.”

He further said, “The Act may get legal sanction by the Parliament but it will never get any recognition by the people of Assam.”

Assistant general secretary of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) Jayanta Kumar Bhattacharya, while participating in the protest, said, “The BJP leaders of Assam are not the guardians of Assamese people to forcefully impose an Act which is detrimental to the cause of the indigenous people. We want the government not to play divisive politics and to implement the clauses of the Assam Accord, which is the heart and soul of the people of Assam.”

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