New Delhi: The Chakmas and Hajongs protested on Tuesday at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against their racial profiling by the Arunachal Pradesh government through a special census only for them.
The protests were led by Arunachal Pradesh Chakma Students Union (APCSU), the Committee for Citizenship Rights of the Chakmas and Hajongs of Arunachal Pradesh (CCRHCAP), Arunachal Pradesh Chakma and Hajong Students Association (APCHSA) and Chakma Development Foundation of India (CDFI). The Chakmas and Hajongs of Arunachal Pradesh are migrants from the Chittagong Hill Tracts of erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. On August 15 last year, the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, Pema Khandu announced that the Chakmas and Hajongs, who settled in the state about 60 years ago will be relocated outside the state.
On Tuesday, the training of the government enumerators was scheduled to be conducted at Diyun under Changlang district. The protestors submitted a memorandum to Union Home Minister Amit Shah. “In clear violations of the directions of the National Human Rights Commission against the ongoing racial profiling on 24.01.2022, the Arunachal Pradesh State government officials sought to conduct an illegal census and the training of the enumerators is supposed to be held today at Diyun. Chakmas and Hajongs shall not participate in any such illegal census", said Rup Singh Chakma, President of the APCSU.
“The Chakmas and Hajongs who had migrated during 1964-1969 are citizens of India as per the Indira-Mujib accord of 1972 and Section 5(1) of the Citizenship Act of 1955. Those who are born in India are citizens by birth too. The State of Arunachal Pradesh instead of implementing NHRC Vs State of Arunachal Pradesh of 1966 to confer citizenship and enrolling the Chakmas and Hajongs into electoral rolls had started racial profiling of the Chakmas and Hajongs to keep the pot boiling,” stated Santosh Chakma, General Secretary of the CCRCHAP.
“There is no law in India which can make particular citizens stand in the queue for census solely based on their Chakma or Hajong ethnic origin and the same is prohibited by Article 14 of the Constitution of India. By seeking to conduct special census targeting, Arunachal Pradesh is destroying the communal harmony and cordial relations between the Chakmas and Hajongs on the one hand and the other communities. There is a need for immediate interventions from the Home Minister to bring some sanity to this organised targeting of the worst victims of the descendants of the partition of India,” said Suhas Chakma of CDFI while addressing the protest.
In their memorandum to Amit Shah, the protestors have demanded to immediately stop and abandon the ongoing process of the 'illegal' census of only the Chakma and Hajong people and bring an end to the repression of the Chakmas and Hajongs through racial profiling, proper implementation of the Supreme Court judgments on the conferment of citizenship and compliance with the directions of the NHRC.
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