New Delhi: The
United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) has threatened to derail the peace accord with the Centre if the
Modi government goes ahead with the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. Ulfa’s 8-member central committee conveyed its strong opposition to government interlocutor AB Mathur during a meeting in New Delhi last week.
Ulfa suspects the bill would reduce the indigenous people in
Assam to a minority.
Ulfa secretary-general Anup Chetia told ET his outfit “strongly opposed” the bill during talks with Mathur. “If Parliament passes this bill, we will have no choice but derail the peace process. We cannot go against the people of Assam for whom we have fought for years,” Chetia said and added that Mathur assured them that he would convey their demands to the home ministry. The bill aims to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees who have fled from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan following persecution. However, in Assam several indigenous groups view it as a move to legitimise Hindu migration from Bangladesh after 1971.
Chetia told Mathur that indigenous Assamese would become a minority in their own state if the bill is implemented. “Influx of immigrants from Bangladesh is illegal whether they are Hindus or Muslims,” he asserted to outline Ulfa’s concern. Ulfa does not want Section 3 of the Citizenship Act which has a cutoff date for time of birth to qualify as citizen of India to be made applicable in Assam. Chetia said more than 1.40 crore Hindus in Bangladesh would enter Assam if the bill is passed as they would not like to settle down in highly-populated Tripura or West Bengal.
