NESO to intensify protests against Citizenship Bill

Guwahati, November 14, 2018:

The North East Students’ Organisations (NESO) on Wednesday announced a series of programmes to thwart the Centre’s move to get the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 passed.

The leaders of NESO, who met in Guwahati on Wednesday, resolved to stage a protest in Guwahati on November 20. Subsequently, protests will be staged at all state capitals of the Northeast on November 30. A protest rally will also be organized in New Delhi ahead of the Winter Session of the Parliament.

Member organizations of the NESO will meet Ministers, MLAs and MPs of the seven states in the region to appeal to them to oppose the Bill in every possible way.

In a statement, the NESO said all states of the Northeast were faced with the problem of unabated illegal immigration from Bangladesh.

“The illegal immigration started from the days after Independence from what was known as East Pakistan earlier. The continuous flow of foreigners from Bangladesh has constantly altered the demography of each of the states. All political parties have deliberately ignored and abated the problem to grow over the decades. All the successive Union governments have chosen to impose heavy burdens of the foreigners on the states…

“The successive Union governments have failed to protect the border with Bangladesh. In fact, there is no visible, concrete and sincere effort on the part of the Union government to seal the border to stop illegal immigration from Bangladesh even today. The border remains an open frontier till today. The illegal immigration on the threatening scale was possible due to the failure of the Government of India and the security forces on the border,” the statement said.