India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI, JANUARY 04— Criticizing the central government for its “insensitive” and “cold” response to the countrywide massive agitations against the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and proposed nationwide National Register for Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR), Jamaat-e-Islami Hind on Saturday urged the government to call an all-party meeting and announce withdrawal of CAA.
At a press conference here on Saturday, Jamaat leaders criticized the central government for its “insensitive response” to the countrywide protests against CAA-NRC-NPR.
“Spontaneous, organic and peaceful protests are being organized by students and youth of India in all the cities, towns and villages of India on almost a daily basis with scenes of unprecedented turnout everywhere and attended by all citizens cutting across barriers of age, gender, race, region and religion. Despite such massive outrage, the cold response of the government and the repressive crackdown on protestors in BJP ruled states indicates that the government is stunned by the unexpected response against the CAA-NRC-NPR and does not know how to secure the confidence of its citizens,” said Jamaat.
(L-R) Jamaat leaders: Arshad Shaikh (Media In-charge), Syed Sadatullah Hussaini (President), Mohammad Salim Engineer (Vice President), Malik Motasim Khan (National Secretary) at Press Conference in New Delhi on Jan 04, 2020.
Jamaat appealed to the central government “to avoid making it an ego issue and quickly announce the withdrawal of the CAA at an all-party meeting also attended by the chief ministers of all the states.”
CAA, passed by the Parliament on December 11, has a provision to grant Indian citizenship only to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain and Parsee migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Jamaat has also urged state governments not to implement NPR until the CAA-NRC is withdrawn.
“Instead of speaking to the protestors and trying to address their concerns, the government has announced the implementation of the NPR from April onwards this year. People have expressed doubts over the NPR and feel that it is a tool, which will surreptitiously aid and supplement the NRC and so the NPR must not be implemented by the state governments until the CAA-NRC is withdrawn by the Union government,” said Jamaat.
Jamaat president Syed Sadatullah Hussaini last week wrote a letter to the Chief Ministers of non-BJP states in this regard.
