Guwahati: A controversial statement by prominent Muslim leader and president of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind Maulana Arshad Madani that any attempt to sabotage the ongoing updation of National Register of Citizens in Assam will create a situation like Myanmar has triggered angry reactions in Assam.
Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Tuesday warned Mr Madani to refrain from giving communal colour to ongoing process of NRC updation. He threatened that his government would not hesitate in taking legal action against such leaders as ongoing process of updating the NRC was linked to the existence of Assam.
Mr Madani who used the platform of a seminar hosted by the Assam Action Committee in New Delhi on Monday said, “There is an attempt to remove 48 lakh married Muslim women from the voting registry in Assam, they will lose all rights, their children will have no education and these people will be thrown out of the country, this is going to create a situation Myanmar is going through.”
Mr Madani also referred the statement of the Assam Action Committee stating that the decision of Guwahati High Court to strike down validity of the certificate issued by village panchayat secretary as a supporting document which indicates the residential status of a married woman has put a question mark on the nationality of some 48 lakh married women of Assam.
Mr Madani, however, stressed that the problem of certificate arose after the BJP-led governments came to power at the Centre and in the state.
“An effort is being made to prepare a ground to remove the women from the NRC. These are 48 lakh women. They will be deprived of their nationality,” Mr Madani said.
Without naming anyone, he added, “First they will be deprived of voting rights and thereafter these people will be pushed out of India. The situation that prevails in Myanmar, they now want to make India a second Myanmar.”
He was referring to the mass exodus of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar to other countries including India. “We want the world to know what is happening in Assam now,” he said.
