GUWAHATI: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that all those who came to India after 2015 will be deported as per the provisions of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)
Emphasizing on the state government’s position on the Act, the chief minister said individuals coming to India before 2015 have the first right to apply for citizenship.
Addressing a press conference, Sarma said “Only eight people have applied so far and two out of these eight appeared in the interview. Anybody (according to the CAA rules) who has come to India before 2015, they have the first right to apply for citizenship.”
The chief minister’s statement comes after he stated that the citizenship act will be “completely insignificant” in Assam due to a low number of applications.
The anti-CAA protest leaders had tried to scare people by saying that up to 50 lakh illegal immigrants could get citizenship under the amended law, he said.
CM Sarma said that it had become clear that members of the Bengali Hindu community who don’t feature on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) wouldn’t apply under the CAA for citizenship.
Based on the rules of the Citizenship Amendment Act, migrants belonging to six religious minorities — Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian from neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan will be allowed to stay in India as citizens if they entered the country before December 31, 2014.
Assam conducted a Supreme Court-monitored National Register of Citizenship (NCR) exercise, the list of which came out in 2019. About 19 lakh people didn’t find their names on the updated NRC list that proves citizenship.
In 2019, five people were killed when Assam saw a massive anti-CAA agitation.
