Stir against Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to intensify in Northeast

Stir against Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to intensify in Northeast

Agartala/Aizawl: Political parties, students and youth organizations besides numerous civil society bodies in the northeastern region are ready to intensify their opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB).

The All India Chakma Social Forum (AICSF), an apex body of the Chakmas of India, Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT), Tripura’s oldest tribal-based party, Tripura United Indigenous People’s Council (TUIPC) besides the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) on Friday announced to intensify their agitations against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

Samuel B Jyrwa, Chairman of the North East Students’ Organisations (NESO), an apex body of eight students and youth bodies, which on Monday held protest demonstrations against the CAB across all the seven states in the region, on Friday said that they would soon decide their next course of action against the CAB.

Tripura’s ruling BJP’s partner, the IPFT will hold a demonstration in Delhi early next month and meet the Prime Minister, Home Minister and other central ministers to press it’s demand for a separate state for the tribals.

“To push our separate state demand and express our strong opposition against the CAB, over 500 members and leaders of IPFT would leave here on November 28 to hold a demonstration in Delhi on December 1 or 2,” IPFT’s General Secretary and party spokesman Mangal Debbarma told IANS.

INPT General Secretary Jagadhish Debbarma said that they would organise a 12-hour long rail and national highway blockade in Tripura on December 5 against the CAB.

“We would sacrifice our life, but we would not allow in any way to execute the proposed amendments of the citizenship act in the northeastern states,” Jagadhish Debbarma told IANS.

The AICSF said that the CAB would be used as an instrument to vilify the Chakma community as “foreigners”.

“There were 2.2 lakh Chakmas in India as per 2011 census. Out of these 96,972 Chakmas were in Mizoram, 79,813 were in Tripura and 2,032 were in Assam and in all these States, Chakmas are citizens of India,” Secretary General of the AICSF Paritosh Chakma, said.

Former militant supremo and leader of the TUIPC Ranjit Debbarma said that the TUIPC is an umbrella body of 48 organisations, and their delegation would soon go to Delhi to meet the Prime Minister and Home Minister to convince them how the proposed CAB would harm the interests of the indigenous people of the northeast. (IANS)

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