BNP on Sunday alleged that the government has taken a position against the country’s people and its sovereignty by remaining silent about National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam since Bengali-speaking Indian Muslims are being pushed into Bangladesh.
“Protests are now there across India terming the Citizenship Amendment Act undemocratic, discriminatory, unconstitutional, and against humanity…The Act has been enacted only targeting the Muslim minority community in India,” said BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, UNB reports.
He further said, “Bangladesh is already overburdened with 11 lakh Rohingyas. It’s clearly a position against the state, our people and sovereignty as the government is exposing its failed foreign policy remaining silent over the evolving situation centring the NRC.”
The BNP leader came up with the remarks at a press conference at the party chairperson’s Gulshan office.
Referring to media reports, Fakhrul said a detention centre has already been constructed in Assam’s Goalpara while a process is on to construct more such centres across India as 19 lakh people were left out of the Assam’s final NRC.
The BNP leader alleged that the government is trying to ignore the NRC issue describing it as India’s internal affairs though it is a threat to the country’s independence sovereignty as Bengali-speaking Indian Muslims are being pushed into Bangladesh very carefully through different borders. “It has triggered strong protest in India itself, and tension along the border.”
He also voiced concern that the way Myanmar made Rohingyas stateless and forced them to take shelter in Bangladesh using the state machinery and unleashing persecution, the same way a process is on to push Indian Muslim minorities into Bangladesh by force using the NRC and Citizenship Amendment Act.
The BNP leader said there is no basic difference between sending Rohingyas to Bangladesh resorting to repression by Myanmar and pushing Indian Muslims into Bangladesh by force through the border.
Fakhrul denounced the remarks made by Indian Home Minister Amit Shah and External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar involving BNP with the persecution of Hindu community members in Bangladesh.
He also demanded immediate withdrawal of such ‘untrue, false and misleading’ remarks about BNP by the Indian leaders in the greater interest of the two countries.
The BNP leader said the Indian government by deliberately criticising a popular party like BNP has demonstrated that it is much interested in developing its relations with Awami League than that of the people of Bangladesh with a motive to make its narrow political gains.
He said their party firmly believes that the remarks of Amit Shah and Raveesh Kumar are regrettable, untrue, unilateral, misleading, discriminatory and highly questionable. “We strongly turn down their remarks.”
Fakhrul urged the Indian ruling party leaders to refrain from making misleading statements about BNP in the future for the sake of mutual assistance and cooperation.
BNP standing committee members Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Mirza Abbas, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, Abdul Moyeen Khan, Nazrul Islam Khan, Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, Selima Rahman and Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku were present.