Organisations representing indigenous communities call for a united fight while the 16-party Opposition alliance announces a non-cooperation movement from Tuesday
The notification of rules for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 has sparked protests in Assam and elsewhere in the northeast.
Members of organisations representing indigenous communities burnt copies of the CAA notification in some parts of Assam on Monday evening as the police sounded a high alert across the State and put barricades in place to offset a rerun of the violent anti-CAA protests in 2019 that left five persons, including a minor, dead.
Led by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), 30 organisations have appealed to people to put up a united fight against the controversial Act while the Congress-led Opposition alliance of 16 political parties announced a Statewide ‘hartal’ or non-cooperation movement from Tuesday.
The political parties and NGOs have refrained from calling a bandh given the Gauhati High Court’s 2019 order that makes losses incurred due to shutdowns and damage to public property recoverable from people behind such stirs.
“Riding its numerical strength in Parliament, the government headed by the dictatorial BJP has imposed the CAA on us. This Act will bring doom for the indigenous people of Assam and the rest of the northeast,” AASU president Utpal Sarma said.
“The CAA, which threatens the language, culture, and existence of the Assamese people, cannot be accepted at any cost. We will hit the streets against this Act and challenge it in the court,” he said.
This story was originally published in thehindu.com. Read the full story here.