New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday will introduce in the Lok Sabha the Citizenship Amendment Bill that seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan escaping religious persecution there.
In the afternoon, the home minister will introduce the Bill to amend the six-decade-old Citizenship Act and later in the day, it will be taken up for discussion and passage, according to the Lok Sabha's List of Business for Monday.
The Bill has triggered widespread protests in northeastern states with a large section of people and organisations opposing the Bill, saying it will nullify the provisions of the Assam Accord of 1985, which fixed March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for deportation of all illegal immigrants irrespective of religion.
The influential North East Students' Organisation (NESO) calling an 11-hour bandh on December 10 in the region.
Members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities, who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, till December 31, 2014, facing religious persecution there will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship, according to the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), 2019.
To assuage feelings of tribals of the Northeast, where many feel that permanent settlement of illegal immigrants will disturb the region's demography, the government has made provisions under which the Bill will not be applicable in the Inner Line Permit (ILP) regime areas and those tribal regions that are governed under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
The ILP regime is applicable in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.
The Bill also proposes to give immunity to such refugees facing legal cases after being found, illegal migrants.
The Bill was an election promise of the BJP in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP-led NDA government had introduced the Bill in its previous tenure and got the Lok Sabha's approval. But it did not introduce it in the Rajya Sabha, apparently due to vehement protests in the Northeast. That Bill lapsed following the dissolution of the last Lok Sabha.
(With inputs from PTI)
