The All Assam Students Union (AASU), an influential student body of Assam, on Sunday warned political parties not to politicise and communalize the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which was published in Assam on July 31.
The North East Students Organisation (NESO), an apex students’ body of all the indigenous communities in the region, demanded to update the registry of citizens in other Northeastern states to segregate genuine and non-genuine citizens.
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“There is a propaganda going on by some political leaders of India that the NRC was anti-Bengali or anti-Muslim. The NRC update was anti-illegal Bangladeshis and not against any Indian,” AASU chief adviser Sammujal Bhattacharya told journalists in Shillong.
Warning political parties from “politicizing and communalizing” the NRC in Assam, the AASU leader said: “I want to tell such leaders that India is for Indians and Assam and Northeast is also for Indians but not for illegal Bangladeshis.
“The Trinamool Congress (TMC) must learn a lesson from the problem in the northeast and save West Bengal from being swamped by illegal Bangladeshi immigrants,” Bhattacharya said.
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“Bangladeshis are also entering West Bengal. Concentrate more on securing your borders,” he said, referring to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress have been extremely critical of the draft NRC in Assam that left out more than 40 lakh people from the list and termed it as a BJP political strategy to drive out “real Indians” from the country.
But the powerful AASU leader maintained that the NRC was a document to protect the identity of the indigenous people of the northeast.
Bhattacharya also hit out at political parties for not raising the influx of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Parliament. “This is a grave situation and what’s happening in the northeast should be discussed in Parliament.”
“We demand the updation of NRC in other states of the northeast also so that we can know the quantum of problem the region is facing,” NESO chairman Samuel B. Jyrwa said.