Citizenship for Bangladeshi refugees in Arunachal opposed

Guwahati: The North-East Students’ Organisation (NESO), an umbrella organisation of students’ bodies of the north-eastern States, on Tuesday opposed granting citizenship to Chakma and Hajong refugees of Arunachal Pradesh. But if it had to be done, they must be settled outside the northeast region, it said.

Briefing reporters on the resolutions adopted at the first meeting of newly elected NESO central executive, its secretary-general Gunjum Haider and chairman Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharyya expressed the apprehension that the refugees would overwhelm the indigenous population of Arunachal Pradesh by 2020.

Between 1964 and 1969, a total of 2748 Chakma and Hajong families consisting of 14,888 persons settled down in Arunachal Pradesh. They had fled their ancestral land in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of the erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to escape religious persecution of Buddhists.The NESO leaders accused the Assam government of protecting “illegal Bangladeshi migrants” who were served quit notice and driven out from Arunachal Pradesh by the All-Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union during its “Operation Clean” campaign. Mr. Haider alleged that some of them had re-entered Aruanchal Pradesh equipped with “some papers issued by village headmen in Assam.” The NESO demanded special constitutional status for the people of the northeast with adequate rights over land and natural resources and introduction of inner line permits in all the States of the region to protect them from being overwhelmed by illegal migrants and outsiders.

The student body plans to observe North East demand day on December 17 when it will call on Governors of the north-eastern States to submit memoranda addressed to the Prime Minister. It will also begin a survey of Central government organisations to find out how many from the northeast they had employed. The NESO reiterated its demand for 100 per cent reservation of C and D category jobs in all Central and semi-Central organisations in the region for the locals, declaration of the northeast as a special employment zone and constitution of a special commission to address the economic issues of the region.

Expressing concern at the situation in Myanmar, the NESO said the Centre should tell the military junta to stop the suppression of the democratic movement. The NESO leaders claimed that several thousand Myanmarese had fled to Mizoram. They warned the Centre of serious economic consequences.

sources by-http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/05/stories/2007120561251100.htm