After years of delay, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 has been finally implemented in India. The Union Home Ministry on March 11 notified rules for implementation of the CAA, days ahead of LS Polls 2024. The Act aims to confer Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians who migrated from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and arrived in India before December 31, 2014.
Shortly after the announcement, celebrations broke out among the Pakistan refugees who had taken shelter in India. Elated by the implementation, one of the refugees from Jodhpur, called PM Modi an ‘incarnation of God’ and also thanked him. As per Govt report for 2021-22, between April 1, 2021 and Dec 31, 2021, as many as 1,414 individuals from non-Muslim minority communities originating from Pak, Bangladesh, Afghanistan were granted Indian citizenship through registration or naturalisation under Citizenship Act, 1955. Notably, following passage of CAA by Parliament in Dec 2019 and its subsequent Presidential assent, significant uproar erupted across India. Over a hundred individuals lost their lives across the nation either during protests or due to police action.
Video and text courtesy: ANI