Hyderabad: Mohammed Mushtaq Malik, convener of the Telangana-AP Joint Action Committee against the CAA, the NRC and the NPR, alleged that the state government is hiding the fact that the NPR survey will be held in the state. The state government is trying to misguide the people by stating that the survey is no different than the census done every decade.
Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Mr Malik said NPR is the first step towards the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Based on the data collected during the NPR, the government will send notices to a certain quantum of people claiming that they are not lawful citizens of the nation and ask them to prove their citizenship, and if they don’t have the required documents, send them to detention centres.
He said that the government is misleading in its claim that non-Muslim communities need not worry as they will be protected under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). But even other communities will not escape from the sword of the CAA as they will have to prove that they came into the country from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan due to persecution. He asserted that once a person claims that he is a citizen of India, how can he change his stand and plead that he was an intruder? Muslims are leading the struggle as “we have realised the evil design in advance and want to safeguard all our countrymen,” he said.
Mr Malik said that the Joint Action Committee has drawn up a line of action to avoid the NPR. A meeting of Ulema, Mashayekh (Sufis) and community leaders of Muslims will be held at Masjid e Sahaba Panjagutta on February 27 at 11 am. He said mohalla-wise committees will be constituted to put a check on the NPR. He threatened to lay siege to the Assembly if the Telangana government fails to put a stop to the NPR.
