Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) continued across Upper Assam on Tuesday.
In Dibrugarh district, the All Assam Sonowal Kachari Students’ Union, along with other organisations, staged a sit-in at Moran while the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) staged a sit-in at Naharkatia. The AASU also staged a sit-in in Tinsukia and Jorhat districts with the support of various organisations, civil society groups and cultural activists.
Members of the All Assam Sonowal Kachari Students’ Union (AASKSU) held placards and banners and raised slogans against the BJP government, Union home minister Amit Shah and chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal.
Addressing the gathering, AASKSU Dibrugarh president Santanu Sonowal said, “The people will never accept the CAA. Assam is not a dumping ground for illegal migrants from Bangladesh. We have made it crystal clear that we will not accept any foreigner, Hindu or Muslim, who entered the state after 1971. The CAA is against the spirit of the 1985 Assam Accord. It is against the self-respect of the Assamese people. We will fight till our last breath to defeat it. The betrayal by the Centre and the Sarbananda Sonowal government will not be forgotten. People will give them a befitting reply in time.”
A protester at Moran said, “The Centre has imposed CAA on Assam without the people’s consent. Our movement will continue till the law is scrapped. The indigenous people of Assam will not live as second-class citizens. Assam has already accepted immigrants from Bangladesh till 1971 and cannot take the burden of even one more person. All illegal immigrants who have entered the state after the 1971 should be identified and deported.”
An AASU activist in Naharkatia said, “We will not accept the government-imposed CAA because it is unconstitutional and non-secular.”
In Dhemaji district, 30 indigenous organisations staged a protest against CAA, demanding its repeal.
In Tinsukia town, hundreds of AASU activists staged a sit-in in front of the circle office and at Thana Chariali, demanding rollback of the Act. Demonstrations were also staged by the AASU at Sadiya, Dhola, Talap, Kakopathar, Makum, Barekuri, Digboi, Margherita and Panitola.
The AASU’s Tinsukia unit president, Binay Dubey, said, “The people of the state will not accept the unconstitutional and anti-Assam Act at any cost as it is a threat to the Assamese language and culture. The people of Assam will continue their agitation until it is rolled back.”
Preparations for Saraswati Puja, to be held on Wednesday, appeared dull in the district amid CAA protests.
Subhash Dey, an idol-maker, said, “The sale of Goddess Saraswati’s idols has gone down, it’s the lowest in the last 10 years.”
The AASU’s Jorhat unit, supported by 30 organisations, including the All Assam Chutia Students’ Union, Takam Mising Porin Kebang (TMPK) and Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP), staged a sit-in in front of the deputy commissioner’s office.
Additional reporting by Devajit Baruah in Jorhat
The unit’s assistant secretary, Bijoy Shankar Bordoloi, said the CAA was unconstitutional, communal, opposed to the 1985 Assam Accord and totally against the interest of the indigenous people of the Northeast.
He condemned the government’s policy of breaking up the anti-CAA agitation through intimidation, divisive tactics and sops but said the people of Assam were not fools to fall for such machinations.
The protesters shouted slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah, Sonowal, the BJP, the RSS, Jorhat Lok Sabha MP Topon Gogoi, Rajya Sabha MP K.P. Tasa and MLA Hitendra Nath Goswami.
AASU’s Jorhat unit president Arjun Moni Bhuyan said all the organisations would democratically continue to oppose CAA until it is withdrawn.