From Our Correspondent
GUWAHATI: In view of the raging protests against the amended Citizenship Act in Assam as well as rumours doing rounds over possibility of inflow of over 1 crore persecuted Bengali Hindus in the state from Bangladesh, the Assam government has requested Centre to provide a very ‘short window period’ for putting up application for Indian citizenship under the Act.
The government wants such 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 rumour is on about beneficiaries. Our view is that number of applicants in Assam will be in the range of three to five lakh and these people have been staying in Assam since the period 1972-1975. We want to remove this confusion raised by various quarters,” said Himanta Biswa Sarma, senior BJP leader.
Regarding the rules that are being framed for implementation of CAA, Sarma informed that the set of rules would basically have three components that include: One has to prove that he/she belongs to any of the particular religious communities, whose members are eligible for Indian citizenship under CAA; applicants will have to prove that they came to India before December 31, 2014; lastly, they have to prove that they came from the designated countries (Bangladesh, Pakistan and India). However, they will not be required to prove that they had to flee from their country of origin out of fear of religious persecution or for being subjected to religious persecution as it would be difficult to gather such proofs.