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Migration and human rights issues of the NE raised in UN

By Syed Miraz Ahmed |

The Committee on Racial Discrimination under Urgent Action and Early Warning Procedure dated August 15th 2008, recommended India to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (CERD/C/IND/CO/19). India was asked to submit the report latest by December 31st 2008, but the report is still awaited. 

Presenting his statement on the Violation of International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination during the 36th Regular Session of Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, Pankaj Jyoti Hazarika, Chief Functionary of NGO Prahar said, “Most of human rights violation issues in Northeast especially in Assam are caused by the inadequate measurement and negligent attitude of the government towards the proper sealing of the border areas. One of the most historical movements of India to detect, delete and expel the foreign nationals is the Assam Movement. Since 1979 of this movement evoked to till now, in these 38 years many governments came and gone, in fact 855 youths of Assam has lost their lives but this border issue is remaining same.”

Though political parties have set this severe issue on their political agenda, they seem to have abandoned the issue altogether. Whereas because of illegal migration the indigenous peoples of Tripura have become a minority in their own birthplace. 

“Like Tripura, the demography of Assam has been changing because of illegal migrants. The root cause of this criticality are open borders. Why is the government not able to resolve the issue even after 70 years of independence?,” questioned Hazarika.

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