ITANAGAR, May 20: The All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union (AAPSU) is slated to stage protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill on 21 May at the tennis court near IG Park.
The union has appealed to the indigenous people of the state to join the rest of the Northeast in the movement against the Bill. Members of the North East Students’ Organisation (NESO) and the AAPSU will stage the protest from 9.30 am onwards. The decision to this effect was taken in a NESO executive meeting held at Guwahati on 11 May.
The sit-in protest is the second phase of the NESO’s agitation against the Bill.
The AAPSU has also requested all the district students’ unions, the student community in general, community-based organisations, NGOs, and political parties to stand together against the Bill.
The AAPSU said that the Centre has “not done the needful” to understand the problems and aspirations of the people of the state.
The PPA and the INC are expected to join the students during the sit-in protest, while the ruling BJP has maintained silence on the issue.
Introduced in the Lok Sabha on 19 July, 2016, by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, the Bill proposes to amend the Citizenship Act of 1955 and make minority Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh eligible for applying for Indian citizenship.
Notably, the Bill is not extended to the illegal Muslim immigrants or other communities from these three countries, and goes against Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, which prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth.
The capital complex district administration had earlier on Sunday evening denied permission for the sit-in protest on the ground that the AAPSU and the NESO did not seek permission five days prior to the scheduled protest as required. But the DA later modified its decision, with the condition that responsibility for any damage to private and public property has to be borne by the organisers.
