Joining the political race with BJP weeks after the Modi government announced a relaxed visa policy for select age groups of Bangladeshi nationals, the Congress government in Assam on Wednesday approved a proposal to grant Indian citizenship to lakhs of refugees from Bangladesh staying in the state for the last 43 years.
The state cabinet approved the proposal that states refugees who have fled religious persecution and discrimination in Bangladeshi and entered Assam post March 25, 1971, the cutoff date for determining an illegal migrant in the Assam Accord, will not be treated as foreigners. The proposal was lying with the state government, pending cabinet’s approval, for the last two years.
There is no census of these refugees but rough estimates suggest that the figure could be not les than 85 lakh. Majority of them are Bengali-speaking Hindus. There are also Buddhists, Garos, Rajbongshis, Adivasi tribals and Bishnupriya Manipuris. They settled mostly in Assam due to its close proximity to Bangladesh, West Bengal and Tripura.
State forest and environment minister Rockybul Hussain read out the cabinet decision to TOI, which states, “These people should not be treated as foreigners, should be accorded basic human rights like access to courts and education, should not face the threat of deportation and should be granted citizenship in the same manner as in Gujarat and Rajasthan where people under a similar situation were granted Indian citizenship.”
Hussain said chief minister Tarun Gogoi on April 20, 2012 had submitted a memorandum to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that states “…those persons who were Indian citizens at the time of Partition and were subsequently compelled to leave their homes and hearth due to persecution, atrocities and insecurity of life and property deserve humanitarian consideration. Under the existing system and laws, such persons are liable to face prosecution, expulsion and deportation.”
The Assam Accord, which was signed in 1985 between All Assam Students’ Union and the central government in the presence of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at the end of a six-year-long anti-foreigners’ movement, states that any person who have entered the country after midnight of March 24, 1971, will be deported.
Source: The times of india
