Dhaka, Dec 22 – The opposition BNP yesterday accused the present government of playing a reluctant role over National Register of Citizens (NRC) in India terming this as anti-people, anti-sovereignty and anti-state stance of the government.“Agitation is going on across India describing the NRC law undemocratic, discriminatory, unconstitutional and anti-human. The protest turned into conflict elsewhere. The people believe that the law has been prepared to target the minority Muslims,” BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said this while speaking at a press conference.
The BNP arranged the press conference at BNP chairperson’s political office in Gulshan to make party’s position clear over the just amended NRC law by India.
He said the Indian government has already built detention centre at Goalpara in Assam and process is reported to construct many detention centres across India.
The BNP leader said Bangladesh is already overburdened with over 11 lakh Rohingya people who came from Myanmar then the reluctant role of Bangladesh government over the arising situation over the NRC proved the failure of its foreign policy.
The reluctant role of the government over NRC issue is clearly proved its position against the people, sovereignty and anti-state, he observed.
He claimed that despite the government termed the NRC as internal affairs of India, push-in of Bangla speaking Muslims to Bangladesh is going on through different borders either secretly or openly spreading tense situation in the bordering areas.
Mirza Alamgir said as Myanmar used state mechanism and forced Rohingyas to take shelter to Bangladesh, Indian has similarly taken the process to push-in Bangla speaking people to Bangladesh announcing them stateless.
He condemned the statement of Indian home minister and BJP president Amit Shah and International Affairs Minister Rabish Kumar accusing the BNP of carrying out repression on Hindu community and demanded the withdrawal of their statements.
The BNP leader rejected their statements terming them untrue, lopsided, discriminatory and misleading.
Party standing committee member Dr Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Mirza Abbas, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, Abdul Moyeen Khan, Nazrul Islam Khan, Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, Selima Rahman and Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku were present at the press conference.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act of 1955 by providing a path to Indian citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities fleeing persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan but Muslims were not given such eligibility. The act was the first time religion had been used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law. – Staff Reporter
