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Protestors participate in a peaceful march against the Citizenship Amendment Bill in Kohima on Thursday. (EM Images)[/caption]
Our Correspondent
Kohima, Oct. 3 (EMN): Protestors gathered to oppose the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in Kohima on Thursday demanded all the chief ministers of Northeast states to unite for a common cause and resist the central government’s attempt to impose CAB.
Hundreds of people participated in a peaceful rally organised by the Northeast Forum for Indigenous people (NEFIP) and Joint Committee for Prevention of Illegal Immigrants (JCPI) at the state capital, the first of a series of planned agitations across the Northeast.
“I have not seen a single occasion of north-eastern states’ chief ministers coming together for common policies and programmes other than while meeting up with the central government,” said the vice president of NEFIP, Theja Therieh.
He said that the forum wants to bring the common people as well as the people in power together to oppose the CAB. “We want the chief ministers to take all the MPs of the Northeast on board, and voice together (against the CAB) in Parliament,” he maintained.
Therieh appealed the political leaders of the region to ‘come together at least for the CAB issue’ and relay the sentiments of the people to those in power in New Delhi.
According to him, ‘illegal occupants’ will get full legal rights to be an inhabitant of the state once the bill is passed.
“If CAB is enforced all over India, then within 50 years Nagaland will be under the feet of outsiders like the Assam and Tripura states,” commented a representative of an organisation.
The protestors also submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio appealing him to ask the central leaders to withdraw the contentious bill ‘in the interest of peace and harmony’.
“As the elected leader of the state, given by the mandate of its people to you and your party, it is requested that the confidence reposed to you may not be infringed and the will of the people of the state may be fully endorsed and met on this issue.
“Violence had erupted on this issue in the region a number of times and as responsible citizens, we do not want violence to happen again. It is. therefore, our sincere request to you to keep in the loop any action initiated from your end in this regard so that the people and the elected leaders go side by side on this issue,” it read.
In August 2016, the forum had submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi stating that, if enacted, the bill will create a demographic imbalance to the already fragile indigenous population of the NE region; and pose grave danger to the very existence of the indigenous people of NE as a whole irrespective of the size of the population of the communities.