ITANAGAR, Sep 25: The token citizenship which provides limited rights even after 52 years of sufferings, as proposed by MoS Kiren Rijiju, has no basis on law, the Arunachal Pradesh Chakma Students’ Union (APCSU) has stated.
The APCSU stated that there should not be any confusion about whom to grant citizenship; the actual number of Chakmas and Hajongs to be granted citizenship following the Supreme Court judgment was not over 1,00,000, which is false and fabricated.
Citizenship is to be conferred only to those Chakmas and Hajongs numbering around 6,087 who migrated during 1964-69, while majority of Chakmas and Hajongs are already citizens by birth under Section 3(1) (a) of the Citizenship Act, 1955, the Union said.
“The citizenship is not new but the irony is that majority of the Chakmas and Hajongs are citizens by birth and over 4100 Chakmas and Hajongs are voters in Changlang, Lohit and Papum Pare districts. Politicization of Chakma-Hajong vexed issue led to monumental failure on the part of state and central government. It is the time to restore all the rights that were withdrawn in 1980s, and not to politicize the rights of Chakmas”, the students said.
They further said that more than 200 Chakma families were rendered homeless and landless last year due to floods, but the state government neither rehabilitated these landless Chakmas nor erected permanent embankment to prevent erosion.
