GUWAHATI: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the state government is ready to do everything it takes to protect the state from any demographic invasion, besides maintaining communal harmony at all costs.
Speaking to the media, the Chief Minister said that to prevent child marriage and to empower women, the state government introduced a bill that would make registration of Muslim marriages by sub-registrar compulsory in place of Kazis.
“Our next bill will be on banning polygamy. We will also introduce a bill to regulate inter-religion marriages in the state,” he said.
He further said that the government has already introduced a bill to protect places with iconic structures in Batadrava, Barpeta, and Majuli. “We have also introduced a bill to regulate interfaith land transfers. All these are aimed at providing safeguards to the state,” he said.
CM Sarma added, “I’m vocal on demographic changes taking place in the state. This is not politics. It’s the ground reality. Demographic change is taking place at every booth level in the state. I’ll publish a white paper on this issue. For instance, Kacharigaon is a village in Dhing. However, not a single family belonging to the Kachari community is living there now. They fled the village. Muslims are protected in Hindu-dominated areas. However, Hindus are not protected in Muslim-dominated areas. Why does it happen? What I want is communal harmony in the state.”
He further added, “What I speak out on demographic changes in the state are not my words. These are in the report of the then Assam governor, SK Sinha, to the centre. The Supreme Court of India also mentioned its observation on the demographic aggression in the state in Sarbananda Sonowal’s case on the now abrogated IM(DT) Act. Even the first Chief Minister of Assam, Gopinath Bordoloi, and his successor, Bishnuram Medhi, also made statements on demographic aggression in Assam.”
The Assam CM commented, “The recent development in Bangladesh may put Assam on a difficult footing. In the past few days, we have pushed back around 50 Bangladeshis along the Indo-Bangla border. The arrest in the Tripura sector was even more. We have deployed additional forces along the Karimganj border and the railway station. Against our supposition that more Hindu-Bengalis will enter India from Bangladesh, the majority of the infiltrators are Bengali-speaking Muslims. The closure of most of the textile factories in Bangladesh due to the recent unrest has rendered them jobless. They are economic refugees and are out to seek jobs in India. Their main destinations are the garment factories at Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. I will write a letter to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to check the credentials of people joining the garment factories in Coimbatore.”
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