By Nikita Jain
Civil society on Tuesday alleged that the BJP government in Assam has targeted one community – Bengali Muslims – in its arbitrary eviction orders and has made the situation dangerous for them, branding them as “foreigners” and rendering them homeless.
In an urgent public tribunal organized by the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) and Karwan-e-Mohabbat, legal experts, bureaucrats, researchers, and human rights activists released a ground fact-finding report on the grave human rights violations being committed against the Bengali Muslim community in the state.
The press conference was attended by Justice Iqbal Ansari, Shri Gopal K Pillai, Jawahar Sircar, Wajahat Habibullah, Syeda Hameed, Harsh Mander, Prashant Bhushan, Taison Hussain, Imtiaz Hussain, Professor Apoorvanand, and Fawaz Shaheen, who spoke on the realities of life in India’s detention centers and the illegal and unethical eviction and detention of Bengali-speaking Muslims.
All B.T.C Minority Students’ Union (ABMSU) President Taison Hussain said that Muslims in Assam, in the name of foreigners, are bearing the brunt of brutality and injustice.
Speaking to Maktoob after the conference, Hussain said, “The main issue in Assam is the illegal detention of Muslims in the name of foreigners and the arbitrary eviction of landless Muslim families. The government is violating the rights of the minorities.”
He further said that the recent developments only show how the constitutional rights of the people in Assam are being snatched. “The system that Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has created goes totally against the Constitution of India,” he added.
Speaking about the situation in Assam, Hussain said that the people being displaced and whose houses have been demolished are local Muslims but branded as foreigners.
“People are being picked up, branded foreigners, and dumped in no-man’s land, even women with infants. Ninety percent of those targeted are Indians. This is a gross violation of human rights,” he said during the speech.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.