Amid evictions in Assam, AASU to resume anti-CAA agitation from Friday

Guwahati: Amid BJP government's eviction drive targeting the Bengali Muslims in Assam, members of All Assam Students' Union (AASU) will hit the streets on Friday demanding exemption of the entire state from the purview of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

Passed in 2019, the CAA allows non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan till December 2014 to get Indian citizenship. The Northeast roared in violent protest against the CAA.

President of the influential students' Union, Utpal Sarma on Thursday said detection and deportation of all post-March 1971 migrants from Bangladesh must be done irrespective of religion as agreed in the Assam Accord of 1985.

"Assam Accord decided March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date for detection and deportation of the foreigners from Assam, irrespective of religion.

"But the BJP government is playing communal politics by trying to give citizenship to the non-Muslim migrants till 2024 through the CAA. Assam will never accept this," Sarma said.

AASU is an influential organisation, which had spearheaded the six-year-long anti-foreigners movement or Assam Agitation (1979-1985), which culminated in the Assam Accord. The students' body have also been agitating against the CAA.

Sarma's announcement about fresh agitation came amid reports about the state home department's recent directive for not referring the cases of non-Muslim migrants till 2015 to Foreigner Tribunals.

An official in the state home department told DH that the directive was issued as per provisions in the CAA.

But AASU leaders said the CAA is unacceptable as it would reduce the indigenous Assamese into minorities by giving citizenship to a large number of Bengali speaking Hindu migrants from Bangladesh.

"By signing the Assam Accord, we accepted the illegal migrants till March 1971. We can't take more burden. Assam is not a dumping ground for the illegal migrants," he said.

Following protest against the CAA, the Centre had amended it further to keep the states having Inner Line Permit (Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh) out of the purview of the CAA.

The Centre also introduced ILP in Manipur. Similarly, the areas under the Sixth Schedule councils, which covers 98 per cent areas in Meghalaya, 67 per cent areas in Tripura and eight districts in Assam, were also kept out of the CAA.

"So now Assam will be the worst sufferers after the CAA is implemented. We want that the entire Northeast must be exempted from the CAA," Sarma said.

An anti-CAA agitation in 2019 turned violent in Assam, in which five agitators died but the Centre went ahead with the act despite protests. AASU's fresh agitation is likely to hurt the ruling BJP, which is trying to reap political mileage out of the eviction drive against the Muslims ahead of Assembly elections slated early next year.