Hyderabad: The city’s women have asked Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao to clarify his stand on the National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register for Citizens (NRC), as it appears that the Telangana government is hesitating to take a clear stand on the NPR.
“Is the government succumbing to political pressure?” the Women’s Alliance against NPR wanted to know. “Like Kerala, West Bengal, Punjab and Rajasthan, the Telangana State government must also take a strong stand against CAA, NPR and NRC.”
Jasween Jairath of the Alliance said: “The CM passed a resolution against CAA and we want him to pass a resolution against NPR and NRC too. The NPR exercise is a backdoor entry for NRC. It is taking away the democratic rights of the citizen through the Constitution.”
The women have been protesting at various fora against NPR, and have been targeted by police with detentions and false cases. “Police must stop interfering in peaceful protest against NPR anywhere in the state,” Ms Jairath said. “We also want all cases withdrawn against those who peacefully protested,” she explained.
NPR will be used for NRC, claim women
The women stated they will continue to resist and will garner more support against it.
“The information collected through NPR will be used for NRC and there will be an opportunity created to discriminate on the basis of caste, colour, creed, religion and gender,” Ms Rama Malkote of the forum said.
The women felt the strategy was to disempower politically inconvenient segments of the society through disenfranchisement which would legally deprive socio-economically weaker sections of society. It would lead to chaos and many citizens’ rights will be taken away in the name of population census and illegality of status.
