10 Lakh People From ILP States To Be Dumped In Assam: Suhas Chakma

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Addressing the media in a press conference held at Guwahati Press Club on Friday, Suhas Chakma, the Director at New Delhi Rights & Risk Analysis Group (RRAG), said, “The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the ruling BJP have proposed to tweak the CAB to provide that the CAB will not override the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) of 1873 under which Indian nationals are required to take Inner Line Permit( ILP) for entry into Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram and the CAB will not be applicable for these states. If the CAB is tweaked to exempt the ILP states of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland and the Manipur people’s Protection Bill 2018 is given assent, more than 10 lakh people from these states can be identified as illegal residents and be dumped into Assam. Hence, Assam instead of expelling the alleged foreigners will end up receiving over a million people before 2024.”

Stating that the Assam government and the MHA have no policy and legal framework as to how to resolve the issues of most of the tribes, Chakma said, “The CAB will provide citizenship by naturalization to persons belonging to minority communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan but the Gorkhas, scheduled tribes, Bhojpuris, Koch Rajbongshis, tea tribes etc cannot claim to have come from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan and therefore, they are not covered under the CAB.”

Suhas Chakma further added that the tweaked CAB will be another instrument to target Indian citizen minorities in the ILP states. He said, “There is a need for a holistic, one time solution for all the excluded people from NRC. But the BJP government is shying away from taking such a bold decision as it seeks to divide people and the North East along ILP lines. Any state or union territory which is under the jurisdiction of Union of India has to share equal burden including on refugees. If North East is divided into ILP and non-ILP States, the region will witness balkanization and people, especially minorities will suffer more.”

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