Hyderabad: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president and MP Asaduddin Owaisi has denounced the statement of senior minister of Assam and BJP leader Hemanta Biswa Sarma that the government will protect the Hindus whose names were excluded from the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

“The statement shows the arrogance and ignorance of the minister. As he has taken oath on the constitution, I want to tell him to at least know his constitutional responsibilities”, Owaisi told the media.

Of the 1.9 million people excluded from the NRC on suspicion of being infiltrators in Assam, majority belonged to the Hindu community. Sarma and many other BJP leaders have sought to assure the affected people that the Hindus whose names were left out will be protected by the government.

Owaisi said that the citizenship act has no mention of religion and nobody can discriminate on the basis of religion in deciding citizenship.

The MIM leader pointed out that the citizenship act had come into effect on November 20, 1949 and under the amendments introduced later any anybody who was born in India between 1950 to 1977 was an Indian citizens. In another subsequent amendment it has declared that anybody who was born between 1977 and 2004 and any of his or her parents was Indian will also be given Indian citizenship. Another act was passed in 2004 saying anybody who was born after 2004 and whose parents were not illegal immigrants will be given the nationality. “Let the BJP and Sangh Parivar explain where is the mention of religion in all these acts. The citizenship acts don’t say that the citizenship will be granted on the basis of religion”.

Owaisi said that it was not a joke that 1.9 million people were excluded from the NRC. He said the entire exercise of NRC at a cost of Rs16 billion was futile as nothing came out of it. “Former federal minister Kiren Rijuju had said in parliament that there were 20 million illegal settlers in Assam. Present Union Home Minister Amit Shah had claimed that 5 million infiltrators were staying in Assam. Where are these infiltrators now”? he asked.

He said that the sort of statements the BJP and RSS leader were making on the issue of citizenship were bringing a bad name to India. He said there were lot of refugees in India and he was not talking about them. “But you cannot make refugees citizens”.

Hemant Biswa Sharma had said that a large number of Hindus from Bangladesh had taken refuge in India since 1971 and if India does not take care of them, who will?