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BJP accuses State Govt of playing games

By Staff reporter

GUWAHATI, July 1 � Alleging that the Assam Government is playing a political game on the issue of the displaced Hindu population from Bangladesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday said that it would file a petition before the National Human Rights Commission asking for the basic rights of food, shelter, livelihood and the right of non-refoulement for such people.

Addressing the media here, Bhupendra Yadav, MP and national secretary of the BJP said that according to the party�s estimates around 4 lakh Hindus displaced from Bangladesh are living in Assam.

Pinki Anand, advocate and a member of the BJP�s legal cell has been entrusted with the job of indentifying the actual condition of the displaced Hindus living in the State. The consultations organised with such people in Silchar and Guwahati were participated by around 600 people.

�The displaced people are living in a pathetic condition here. False cases against many of them are pending in foreigners� tribunals and their names are also included in the �D� voters� list. We met many families where some members are registered as Indian citizens, while the others are deported to Bangladesh,� said Anand.

�The family members of Arjun Namasudra of Barak Valley, who committed suicide around three weeks back because his name was in the �D� voters� list, also came to meet us. Similar cases have also happened in Guwahati, and we would ask the National Human Rights Commission to arrange for providing compensation to those families,� she added.

A petition has also been filed in the Supreme Court in this regard.

The BJP leaders also alleged that though the laws of the country, particularly the Immigrants Act 1950, say that such displaced people cannot be sent back, an executive order passed by the government in the year 2009 directs the administration to expel them.

�Whereas the Assam Chief Minister has expressed his concern about the Bangladeshi Hindus living in Assam, on the other hand his administrative machineries are deporting such people across the border,� Yadav said.

�The Hindus who came from West Pakistan to Gujarat and Rajasthan were accepted as Indian citizens and were rehabilitated in those States,� he mentioned.

The party members further added that the movement to ensure the basic rights to the Hindu people who have left Bangladesh would be accelerated in the coming days and the party would take all the legal and political steps to support those people.

Also lambasting the State government for not doing enough to help the flood-hit people in various parts of the State, the BJP charged that with the Chief Minister and Disaster Management minister abroad, people are left marooned in flood hit areas of the State.

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