GUWAHATI: In view of the raging protests against Citizenship (Amendment) Act in the state as well as rumours doing rounds over possibility of inflow of over 1 crore persecuted Bengali Hindus in Assam from Bangladesh, the state government has requested the Centre to provide a very ‘short window period’ for putting up application for Indian Citizenship under the amended CAA.
Assam government wants such a short period for eligible persons to apply for citizenship under CAA in Assam as soon as possible in order to clear confusions and doubts raised over the number of likely beneficiaries.
“We have submitted before the Centre that we want a very short window period (for filing applications seeking citizenship under the CAA) because in Assam so much rumour is going on about beneficiaries, 1 crore. 1.2 crore. Our view is that number of applicants in Assam will be in the range of three to five lakhs and these people have been staying in Assam since the period 1972-1975. We want to remove this confusion raised by various quarters,” said Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma, senior BJP leader and Assam’s minister for Finance, health, PWD, Education etc.
Regarding the rules that are being framed for implementation of CAA, Dr Sarma informed media that the set of rules would basically have three components :
First, one has to prove that he/she belongs to any of the particular religious communities whose members are eligible for Indian Citizenship under CAA.
Second, applicants for Indian citizenship under CAA will have to prove that they came to India before December 31, 2014.
Third, the applicants have to prove that they came from the designated countries (Bangladesh, Pakistan and India).
However, the applicants won’t be required to prove that they had to fled their country of origin out of fear of religious persecution or for being subjected to religious persecution as it would be difficult to gather proof of religious persecution for a person who had to flee his country of origin to save his/he life.
