TEHRAN (Iran News) – The Indians living in Iran have called on their foreign minister to hold a meeting with them during his trip to Tehran and explain the recent developments occurring in the country after the New Delhi government proposed a controversial citizenship bill. In an open letter to Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who […]
TEHRAN (Iran News) – The Indians living in Iran have called on their foreign minister to hold a meeting with them during his trip to Tehran and explain the recent developments occurring in the country after the New Delhi government proposed a controversial citizenship bill.
In an open letter to Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who is in Tehran for a two-day visit (December 22-23), a number of Indians, as businesspersons, professionals, university and seminary students and scholars living in Iran have requested a meeting to voice their concern over the recent incidents in India that happened due to the controversial citizenship bill.
Anger has been growing in India over the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), which gives refugees of all of South Asia’s major religions, such as Buddhists and Hindus — but excluding Muslims — from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh a clear path to Indian citizenship.
Human rights activists say the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has designed the discriminatory law explicitly to exclude Muslims from the possibility of acquiring refugee status in India and, eventually, citizenship.
India’s 200 million Muslims view the measure as the government’s first step toward making them second class citizens.
Protests in India against the controversial bill have spread to universities across the country, with police storming student campuses and firing tear gas at protesters. Video captured by students shows baton-wielding police storming the campuses while firing tear gas at them. Police officers were also seen beating up students inside campus areas like bathrooms and the library. On one occasion, police locked up the gates of a college in the northern city of Lucknow to prevent students from taking to the streets.
- source : MNA, Irannews
