Thousands of protesters took to the streets here on Thursday opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR).
People under the banner of ‘We the people of India-Odisha’ took out a massive rally from Exhibition Ground to Mahatma Gandhi Marg, a two-km-long stretch. All political parties except Biju Janata Dal and BJP extended their support to the protest.
More than 50 organisations and parties had joined hands for the massive protest. They questioned why Muslims were deliberately kept out of the list of religious minorities who have been allowed to go through a smooth process to secure Indian citizenship under the CAA.
“The Narendra Modi government has announced the NPR exercise for preparing the NRC. The Naveen Patnaik government has extended its support to implementation of NPR in the State. It is unfortunate that BJD MPs supported the CAA Bill in Parliament,” said Suresh Panigrahi, a CPI(M) leader.
Prafulla Samantra, a prominent mass movement leader, said, “The growth in rate of unemployment is disturbing. The economic growth has been consistently going downward. Farmer are dying every day. While the country is in the midst of a crisis, the [Narendra] Modi government is trying to establish a Hindu Rashtra.”
Mr. Samantra said the “agenda is to annihilate minority communities, divide people on religious grounds and increase attacks on tribal and other downtrodden people”.
Mohammed Karim, who hails from Bhadrak district, said, “The policies of the Modi government have threatened the very existence of minority communities in the country. Now, Muslims are being treated as if they are not citizens of the country and the turn of other minority communities will come in future.”
