Siddiqullah Chowdhury, a minister in Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet and also the president of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind’s of West Bengal, has sparked a massive controversy by asking people not to cooperate with central government officials in implementing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR).
Minister of State for Mass Education Siddiqullah Chowdhury urged the people of West Bengal not to share their documents with officials conducting the NPR and CAA exercise in the state.
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“I appeal to all of you. That under no circumstances should you share your documents with them. Keep your documents close to you in safe custody. It will mean a disaster. Do keep your documents as your last sword (sic),” he said.
Speaking at an anti-CAA rally in Bardhaman district of West Bengal, Chowdhury said that unless the state government and party accept the proposal, the people of West Bengal should not be sharing the documents with any officials.
Chowdhary also accused the BJP of creating communal tension and divide in the country on religious grounds.
Just weeks back, Siddiqullah Chowdhury had threatened Home Minister Amit Shah over the CAA and NRC and had warned Home Minister Shah that he will be stopped from entering Kolkata.
“We may not allow him (Shah) to step out of the city airport (Kolkata airport) if necessary. We may gather one lakh people there to stop him,” Chowdhury had said during a protest organised by Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind against the CAA.
Recently, Siddiqullah Chowdhury was also denied a visa by the government of Bangladesh, apparently on ‘technical grounds’.
Ever since the Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed in the parliament West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has launched a massive anti-CAA campaign in the state. Mamata Banerjee had already announced that CAA will not be implemented in her state.
In fact, addressing a series of rallies in the state against CAA, Banerjee urged students to continue their protests against the contentious law. Addition to that, the state of West Bengal has been gripped with massive communal riots following the passing of historic legislation that grants citizenship to persecuted minorities of the three neighbouring countries.
The anti-CAA riots in West Bengal were extremely violent as Muslim mobs indulged in rampant vandalism as they ‘protested’ against the CAA.
The communal riots by Muslim mobs started in West Bengal after the weekly Friday prayers engulfed the whole state with the active support of Mamata Banerjee led state government. The Muslim mobs unleashed violence across the state by burning public infrastructure like Railway stations, buses, toll plaza and destroyed crores worth of tax-payers money to ‘protest’ against the CAA.
