29 January 2020, Wed, 5:04

Jamaat Ameer urges Indian authority to repeal the controversial citizenship act

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Ameer Dr. Shafiqur Rahman has issued the following statement on 29 January 2020 urging the Indian authority to repeal the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in order to resolve the ongoing crisis.

“India is a democratic country. Bangladesh is the neighboring country of India. As a neighboring country, the people of Bangladesh also feel the pulse of the events, happening in India. We have been observing that since the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act in India on last 9 December, 2019, huge reaction and protest has been continuing across India. Protest movement also erupted in various provinces against this controversial act. Already, the chief ministers of different state and province including West Bengal, Rajsthan, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Bihar, Orissa, Panjab and Andhra Pradesh declared not to implement the NRC act.  

India is also witnessing protest and violence centering this citizenship act and 27 people have been killed so far. More than 60 petitions have been submitted in the Supreme Court challenging this controversial act. The civil society members and expertise also termed this act as a violation of the constitution. They claimed, it is inherently unconstitutional in a democratic country like India to fix citizenship on the basis of religion.

UN spokesman on human rights also termed India’s NRC act (National Register of Citizen) as discriminatory. Besides, Amnesty International, European parliament and other democratic countries have expressed their cautious reaction in this regard.

As the citizens of the neighboring country, we also think that, this issue must be resolved within the constitutional periphery. To get rid of the existing crisis, we hope that the central government of India will withdraw the controversial citizenship amendment act immediately.