Citizenship Bill rage on; four injured in Mnp. police crackdown

Correspondent
Imphal, Jan 15 (EMN): Four persons, including two women, were injured here on Tuesday during a police crackdown on protestors demanding scrapping of the Citizens (Amendment) Bill.
Students from schools in and around Imphal and women vendors in the three markets in the city took out the demonstration.
As police obstructed them, there was a scuffle. Mock bombs, tear gas shells were fired at many places and police also tried to take away one student.
Meanwhile nine political parties including state units of Communist Party of India, Revolutionary Socialist Party, Communist Party of India (M),Nationalist Congress Party,Forward Block, Aaam Aadmi Party, Bharatiya Ssmata Party, Janata Dal(S) and Peoples’ Resurgence and Justice Alliance, a regional party organised a convention against Bill at GM Hall in Imphal.
The parties resolved to demand the withdrawal of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and also decided to summon the Manipur assembly to discuss the issue.

On January 10, Manipur’s coalition government, led by chief minister N Biren, held a cabinet meeting in Imphal and decided to ask the Centre to exclude the state from the jurisdiction of the Citizenship Bill altogether and to give its consent to the Manipur People Bill 2018, which has been passed by the state assembly and seeks to regulate the entry and exit of non-Manipuris to and from the state.
Chief Minister N. Biren Singh also met a people’s delegation in the Secretariat during the day but refused to give details to the media.
Manipur has been witnessing various forms of agitations since January 8 when the Lok Sabha passed the contentious Bill.
People in the Northeast have not accepted assurances of Home Minister Rajnath Singh who said that the Bill, when it becomes an Act, will not harm the rights of the indigenous peoples.

M’laya CM to meet Modi, Rajnath Singh on Citizenship Bill

Shillong, Jan. 15 (IANS/PTI):Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said on Tuesday that he has sought an appointment to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016.

“As a government, we have taken the lead in opposing this Bill and we will continue opposing it. Now the situation is slightly different because the Bill has not been passed in the Rajya Sabha and it is not a complete amendment yet. Therefore, right now we are waiting and watching what the (Central) government does,” Sangma told the media here. “We (a delegation of the ruling Meghalaya Democratic Alliance) have sought an appointment and we hope to get it very soon within a week’s time.”

Sangma said that all MDA partners will be part of the delegation and will express the concerns of the citizens of the state and the northeastern people as a whole. Asked if the MDA government should cut off ties with the Centre over the controversial Bill, Sangma said:

“We are yet to take a call on that because the Bill has not been amended completely. When it is amended in full, then the situation arises, but it is not appropriate for me to comment right now.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP) have also submitted separate letters to Modi opposing the controversial Bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha.

Akhil Gogoi says Citizenship Amendment Bill should be made national issue

KMSS leader Akhil Gogoi Tuesday said he would meet Congress president Rahul Gandhi, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, leaders from JD(U) and other parties to make the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill a national issue.
“The Bill still remains an issue of Assam and the northeast. We need to make it a national issue. Though the Congress has opposed it in Parliament, but only their Assam-based MPs have opposed it,” the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) leader, who is at the forefront of the anti-bill movement in Assam said.

Gogoi, along with leaders of the 70 organisations protesting the Bill, has begun a hunger strike from 2 pm Monday at Chachal area here.
“In the next few days, we have decided to meet Rahul Gandhi, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, leaders from JD(U) and other political parties to convince them about the issue. The good thing is that they’re already ideologically opposed to the bill,” he said at the venue of his hunger strike.

The need of the hour is to unite all the movements going on against the Bill across Assam, Gogoi said.
“We think the 70 groups led by KMSS and the 30 groups led by the AASU should unite for this cause. Most of the indigenous groups are in favour of joining hands and making the movement stronger and widespread,” he asserted.
Threatening to intensify the anti-Bill stir in the coming days, Gogoi warned that if the government doesn’t agree to their demands, the next step may be secretariat and assembly gherao by all the organisations with active participation of the student community.

Protests continue amid Bihu celebrations
Protests against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill raged on in Assam Tuesday amid ‘Bhogali Bihu’ celebrations as copies of the legislation were burnt symbolically. There was no let up in the protests during the traditional ‘Meji-Bhelaghar fire’ in the morning where people usually pray for a bright future for the state and a good harvest for farmers in the coming year.

Copies of the bill were burnt at senior advocate Arup Borbora’s house here on ‘Uruka’ yesterday night by eminent litterateur Hiren Gohain and senior journalist Manjit Mahanta against whom the state government has filed a sedition case.

The bill threatens the existence of the Assamese people, they said, and vowed to continue their agitation for the “protection of Assamese people, their land, language, culture and heritage”.

Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) leader Akhil Gogoi, one of the leaders of the anti-Bill protest movement and against whom sedition case was also filed along with Gohain and Mahanta, went on a 24-hour hunger strike yesterday on Uruka day.

The Assam Police on January 10 filed sedition cases against litterateur Gohain, RTI activist Akhil Gogoi and senior journalist Manjit Mahanta for their comments on the citizenship bill.
Gogoi stayed away from the traditional Bihu feasting yesterday as the state is facing “trying times with the Bill passed by the Lok Sabha on January 8”.

Responding to Gogoi’s appeal, members of the 70 indigenous organisations allied to KMSS were seen this morning burning copies of the Bill on the ‘Meji fire’ to register their opposition to the Bill and praying that the “evils of the Bill are burnt in the fire” as they offered their obeisance to the Sun god for a good harvest in the coming year. Prominent journalists, veteran Assamese film actors, members of the

Assam Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chhatra Parishad (AJYCP) and other similar organisations were also seen burning copies of the Bill in the ‘Meji fire’ across the state,
including Guwahati.