The Union cabinet has cleared the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they faced religious persecution there, sources said on Wednesday.

A bill to amend the the Citizenship Act, 1955, is likely to be introduced in Parliament in the next two days, the sources said.

The introduction of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill has been a contentious issue in northeastern states with various groups protesting against it.

Earlier, 12 non-BJP MPS wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to exclude northeastern states from the purview of the bill, saying if it comes into effect, the tribal population of the region will be vulnerable to displacement.

'We the undersigned as members of Parliament representing the indigenous tribes of the northeastern region would like to express our strong objection to the passing and implementation of CAB in our region,' the letter said.

Moreover, several student groups are distributing leaflets and posters among the people in Duliajan, an Assam town, and its neighbouring areas seeking help organise a mass convention and protest march against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

The Assamese people will lose their identity, existence, self–respect, culture, linguistics and demography and they will be reduced to a minority in their own land, if the controversial bill was passed in Parliament, the leaflet distributed by the students stated.

Various bodies in the Northeast — political and apolitical alike — including, Asam Sahitya Sabha, Tipraland State Party, Gauhati University, Cotton University and Dibrugarh University among others, have opposed the bill and demanded scrapping it.