AASU, other organisations to jointly agitate against Citizenship Amendment Bill

After a meeting on Tuesday, All Assam Students Union (AASU) advisor Samujjal Bhattacharya said that AASU along with other organisations in the state is set to launch indefinite protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016, to ensure that it is not enacted.

Speaking to the media Bhattacharya has alleged the present government in Assam, who had come to power with the promise to protect the identity and resources of the indigenous people, of not keeping their promise.

He has also urged all deputy commissioners and officials engaged in the ongoing update process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to make certain that no name of any illegal Bangladeshi were included in the register.

Bhattacharya said a mass fasting will be held in Guwahati from 6 am to 5 pm on May 29, which will be followed by a mass satyagraha at a later date.

"We held a meeting with different students, tribal, literary, cultural and other organisations. It was decided that we will jointly agitate against the Bill and will not allow it to be enacted," he said. Serial protests against the Bill will continue in all the district headquarters of the state, he added.

"The Bill is absolutely communal and will tarnish the secular image of the country. We cannot allow it to be imposed forcibly on the nation", he said. Adding further, he said, "We warn both the central and state governments not to impose the Bill and the Assam government in particular should take a cabinet decision, like its Meghalaya counterpart of not allowing the Bill to be imposed upon the state."