North-East Bandh Today, Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) Protests Live News Updates: The CAB is a contentious issue in Northeast India with influential socio-political groups and political parties holding it as a threat to the interests of the indigenous communities of the region.
Agartala, Guwahati, Imphal, New Delhi: Security has been beefed up across the states of North-East as an 11-hour bandh called in protest against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill — which was passed by Lok Sabha yesterday — began from 5 am Tuesday. Nagaland has been exempted from the purview of the bandh in view of the ongoing Hornbill Festival there.
The Citizenship Bill will make it easier for certain categories of migrants to become eligible for Indian citizenship. The revised version of Bill keeps out of its purview all ILP states — Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland — and the Sixth Schedule regions in Tripura, Assam, and Meghalaya. The bandh has been called by the North-East Students’ Organisation (NESO), an umbrella body of influential students’ bodies of the region, against the “imposition” of the CAB on the Northeast.
Samuel Jyrwa, chairman of the NESO, told The Indian Express that the Bill would open the floodgates for “illegal Bangladeshis” and signified a “dishonouring of the demands of the people of the Northeast”.
The CAB is a contentious issue in Northeast India with influential socio-political groups and political parties holding it as a threat to the interests of the indigenous communities of the region. Earlier this year, several organisations observed a bandh on January 8 when the earlier Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was passed. However, the Bill lapsed as it was not introduced in Rajya Sabha. A new version was tabled on Lok Sabha on Monday.
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