All India Protests against Detention Camp Deaths and NRC

PROTESTS were held in states against continuing deaths in the detention camps where thousands of innocent people have been lodged as a result of inhuman exercise of making NRC in Assam. CPIML has called for protest day on November 6 demanding to shut down detention camps which are nothing but a new version of Hitler’s concentration camps, and to take back the proposed exercise of All India NRC as well as proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB).

So far 27 deaths in Assam Detention Camps have been reported while thousands of citizens have been subjected to immense misery and deprivations by the government in Assam and central government.

In Assam, 25 people died in detention camps before the final list of NRC was published, and 2 – Dulal Chandra Pal and Falu Das - have died since. Dulal’s and Falu’s families have refused to accept their bodies, as a mark of protest. They say that if the two were Bangladeshi, then find their relatives in Bangladesh and hand over the bodies to Bangladesh. Else, admit that they were Indian citizens killed by the Government in detention camps. Even then Amit Shah insists that his Government will implement NRC all over India, forcing every Indian to submit documents proving that their ancestors were registered citizens and voters in 1951. The central government still says that the detention camps will be opened in every state. Such camps are already under construction in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala.

The poor in India are, more often than not, excluded from BPL lists, voter lists and Aadhaar. How can they be expected to provide documents proving their ancestors were Indian citizens in 1951? If they fail to prove it, they will be put in detention camps.

This is a ploy by Modi and Shah government to divide Indians on the basis of faith, saying that if you are Muslim and fail to be included in the NRC list, you will rot in a detention camp or be “thrown out of India.” But the Citizenship Amendment Bill will ensure that if you are not Muslim, you will be accepted as a “refugee” and can apply for Indian citizenship. This only means that under NRC and CAB, Indians will be left with the choice of either dying in detention camps if Muslim, or being reduced from a citizen to “refugee” status if not Muslim!

CPIML has strongly opposed fascist exclusionary designs in the name of NRC and CAB and has called for all citizens - Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Muslims, Christians, workers, peasants, students, women – to unite to resist this ploy which is meant to endanger citizenship of India’s people.

On 6 Nov protests were held in Nagaon, Dibrugarh, Silchar, Biswanath and many other places in Assam, in Patna, Siwan, Arwal, Darbhanga, Dulhin Bazar, Nawada, Mujaffarpur, Nalanda, Begusarai and all other districts of Bihar, in Haldwani in Uttarakhand, at many places in UP, in Jharkhand, in towns in West Bengal including capital Kolkata and Siliguri, in Rayagada and Bhubaneshwar in Odisha, at many places in Punjab. Protests were also held in many other states.

CPIML Politburo member Kunal said in Patna that Modi government has inflicted another disaster on the country in the name of NRC and CAB, which will devastate India’s common people.

Protesters in all places demanded to shut down detention camps in all states and to withdraw all India NRC and the proposed CAB. They said that the Modi-Shah regime is playing with the lives of Indian citizens in order to satisfy BJP’s communal divisive agenda.