DIBRUGARH, May 10 � Religious minority organisations such as Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Budhists and Parsees here have demanded enactment of suitable legislation to provide 20 per cent reservation of seats for national religious minority communities in educational institutions, and for employment in government services.
The communities in a joint memorandum to the Prime Minister, UPA chairperson, Union Minister for Minority Affairs, Union Home Minister, Union Minister for Human Resources, and the Chief Minister of Assam, stated that the religious minorities under the Constitution of India, embrace distinct scripts, languages, cultures, customs and traditions, besides belonging to different economic sections and having different levels of education. They said that the indigenous national religious minority communities deserve safeguard of their identity and socio-economic development of their people.
The minority groups which include Indian Buddhist Council, All Bodo Christians� Association, Assam Buddhist Minority Welfare Society, Ahom Buddhist (Phralung) Sangha, All Assam Garia Maria Deshi Jatiya Parishad, Minorities Education and Development Board, Assam Sikh Kalyan Parishad, All Assam Indigenous Religious Minorities and others have underlined that in case of Assam, all reservations and other minority welfare schemes should be awarded to Assam�s indigenous national religious minority communities only.