GUWAHATI: Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that those applying for citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Law cannot prove if they have faced religious persecution but the central government will use its agencies to internally verify the claims.
Speaking to news channels in Delhi, Sarma said that beneficiaries of CAA would not be able to give evidence of religious persecution in Bangladesh as police stations there are unlikely to give documents of religious persecution.
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“There can be no proof of religious persecution... How can there be proof of religious persecution? People applying for citizenship under CAA will be required to submit documentary evidences that they came to India before December 31, 2014, and that they are Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Parsi or Jain; and that they were citizens of any of the three countries,” Sarma said.
He, however, added that the Centre might use its agencies to internally verify claims of religious persecution.
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The basic tenet of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) is to give citizenship to non-Muslims refugees facing religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. However, going by what Sarma said any non-Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who entered India before December 31, 2014, will now be entitled to Indian citizenship.
Reacting sharply the All Assam Students’ Union said, “We knew they were hoodwinking people by saying that religious persecution will be a basis for citizenship under CAA,” AASU’s Lurinjyoti Gogoi said.
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Visva Bharati University authorities will seek deployment of CISF personnel at the institute’s campus after BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta was confined to a room during anti-CAA protests. The central university had earlier written to the Ministry of Human Resource seeking deployment of the central force.