North-East Students Organisation to stage protests for scrapping of Citizenship Amendment Act

North-East Students Organisation (NESO) will stage protests across the capitals of North eastern states on Wednesday in support of various demands including scrapping of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

NESO Advisor, Samujjal Bhattacharjya stated, "NESO is going to stage a peaceful protest at all its state headquarters. The protest is pertaining to issues related to floods in Assam; the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA); and Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, 1985."

He added, " We will also protest against the influx of migrants, the complete scrapping of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), providing constitutional safeguards to the indigenous communities, the implementation of Inner Line Permit (ILP) across all North-Eastern states, along with the elimination of the operations of fundamentalist groups existing in the region."

G.P. Singh, Assam’s Special Director-General of Police (Law and Order) told media persons that Assam has seen how things happened during the protest last time. “This not the time to protest, rather it is time for development. On Independence Day as many as 55 lakh national flags were hoisted and this is testimony of the public mood.”

Assam witnessed bitter protest in 2019 and early 2020 when the Citizenship Amendment Act — which aims to make minority communities such as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan eligible to apply for Indian citizenship — was passed by Parliament.

Five people were killed in the protests. There was a large-scale violence curfew for several days.

CAA is opposed by different organizations as according to them it is against the Assam Accord.