DAYA News Bureau, 11th December 2022: A seminar was organized by Durgapur Adda Young Association on the occasion of “World Human Rights Day” on 10th December, at Bidhannagar Sector 2-C ground. The topic of the discussion was “Right of Citizenship and Human Rights”. Loosing citizenship means loss of all kinds of human rights; so on Human Rights Day, this seminar was organized to raise awareness about the Citizenship Act.
Secretary of the Durgapur Adda Young Association, Rajesh Sen in his brief speech, highlighted why the observance of ‘Human Rights Day’ assumes importance to the organization.
Mr. Kamal Sur and Dr. Sharmistha Roy discussed the topic of “Citizenship Rights and Human Rights”. In their talk, they mentioned the issue of voter and Aadhaar card linking and said that this is the first step towards creating NPR (National Population Register). Although the Election Commission has declared that this merger is not mandatory, but BLRO is forcing people to do so. They also said that they strongly apprehend that there will be NRC after this. And the process of NRC will be based on such documents which will make many including the adivasis lose citizenship. A large number of people will lose their citizenship rights as they will be asked to show documents prior to July 1948. Their place will be in a prison called ‘detention camp’.
They further elaborated that though it is being said by the government that those from the majority religion who will not be able to show documents prior to July 1948 will get back their citizenship on applying, but the facts and figures in Assam depicts a very different picture. The implementation of NRC in lower parts of Assam has made 19 lakhs people lose their citizenship of which 14 lakhs are from those professing the majority religion of India. Not only this, the Aadhar card of 27 lakhs Assam people has been blocked. As a result, they are not able to withdraw money from the bank, are not getting ration, their children are not being given places in schools or colleges even. The audience present in the seminar enlivened the discussion with several questions. Bothe guest speakers answered the queries with much interest. The meeting ended with a vote of thanks to the guest speakers on behalf of the organization.