Shillong Oct 3: The North East Forum of Indigenous People (NEFIP) which is protesting against the proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) will first challenge in Supreme Court before knocking doors of the United Nations, if the Centre went ahead in pushing the bill.

The NEFIP which is a conglomerate of around 250 organizations held a sit-in protest in all states in the Northeast on Thursday.

In Meghalaya, the protest was led by the Confederation of Meghalaya Social Organisations at a parking lot near Meghalaya Additional Secretariat.

NEFIP secretary general, Robertjune Kharjahrin said, “if the Centre went ahead with the bill, the forum would petition to the UN because the CAB is an act of genocide to wipe out indigenous people in the Northeast.”

Kharjahrin, who is a lawyer himself, said that the forum would first knock the door of the Supreme Court. “The CAB contradicts other existing laws like the National Register of Citizens (NRC) if it is implemented because the CAB is for issuing blanket citizenship to foreigners. Whereas the NRC like in Assam talks about the cut off year, which means that those who came after the cut off year, are foreigners,” Kharjahrin said.

Stating that the Centre is taking a contradictory and double stand on the issue of illegal immigrants, Kharjahrin said, “On one hand, the Centre wanted to flush out foreigners through the NRC, but on the other hand, it pushed the CAB for implementation to embrace foreigners based on religious persecution. This will surely affect the spirit of the 6th Schedule and Article 371 of the Constitution which provides special status to states in the Northeast like Nagaland and others.”

The NEFIP also rejected the claim of the BJP that the exercise related to the CAB was based on humanitarian ground to provide citizenship to persecuted minorities from Bangladesh and other countries.

The NEFIP questioned the Union government’s failure to complaint to UN if persecution of minorities in Bangladesh had taken place.

“There is a hidden agenda of the present government for not going to the UN because there are groups that indulged in persecuting religious minorities in India,” the NEFIP leader said.

Kharjahrin also cited an instance of Pakistan where on April 30 this year, the European Union had asked Pakistan to stop acts of persecution against religious minorities in Pakistan, failing which, the EU will suspend all subsidies and funding to Pakistan.

“If EU can direct Pakistan, then what is the problem for India to do the same by asking Bangladesh to stop such persecution of minorities? If Bangladesh does not listen, India can also act in the same way. But we all know that there is no religious persecution in Bangladesh, but the main problem people face is economic problem and climate change,” he said.

Kharjahrin said that in India, there are already 2 crore illegal Bangladeshis, and now the Centre wanted to invite another 2 crore Bangladeshis through the CAB.

“We understood the move of the BJP is to fulfill its hidden agenda and attack secularism of the country by removing the word secular from the Constitution,” he alleged.

Kharjahrin said that the NEFIP’s protest now and in the coming days is to demand for scraping the CAB once and for all.

On the BJP Meghalaya unit seeking exception of the CAB from Meghalaya and the Northeast, Kharjahrin said, “even if Union government agrees, it will be only a short term relief because if there is no ILP, the indigenous people will in the long run be outnumbered by foreigners who have become Indian citizens through the CAB in other states of India.”

A delegation of NEFIP will soon seek an audience with the Prime Minister to raise this issue while also urging Meghalaya chief minister, Conrad K Sangma and other chief ministers to lead from the front in demanding from the Centre to scrap the CAB.