In what comes as a historic development, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued the first set of certificates to 14 refugees on Wednesday, granting them Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act. Hailing the government’s move, Seetal Das, a Pakistani refugee who came to India in 2013 joyously stated that he will always remember May 15 as the day when he got freedom from the status of being a “refugee”.
MHA asserted that besides these 14 applicants, many other applicants were given digitally signed certificates through email. The issuance of the first set of certificates comes two months after the Ministry of Home Affairs notified the rules for the implementation of the CAA, a law that was enacted by the parliament in December 2019. Despite the enactment four years ago, CAA could not be implemented as the rules were not notified.
The certificates were physically handed over to the first set of citizenship certificates to 14 applicants, congratulating the applicants and highlighting the salient features of the Citizenship Amendment Rules 2024. According to the spokesperson for the Ministry of Home Affairs, ever since the issuance of rules on March 11, applications were received from persons belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi, and Christian communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who have entered India up to December 31, 2014, on account of persecution on grounds of religion or fears of such persecution. BYTE: video 8: 0.1 to 0.57
Bharat, (भरत) one of the applicants who received a citizenship certificate, thanked PM, Narendra Modi, saying that he feels like he “got a new life”. Bharat came to India after fears of facing persecution and was in dire need of Indian citizenship for the past 10 to 12 years.BYTE: video 6: 0.27 to 0.43 CREDIT Sudarshan News Another applicant, Yashoda, who also received citizenship yesterday, expressed her gratefulness to the Narendra Modi government, asserting that her and her children’s situation will get better henceforth. BYTE: video 6: 3.00 to 3.33 CREDIT Sudarshan News
Notably, after the CAA was passed in the parliament in 2019, it triggered a massive uproar across the country due to the rumors that the law would only protect non-Muslims while Muslims residing in India could face deportation. Such false and biased reports were outrightly rejected by Home Minister Amit Shah who assured that “no one will face any inconvenience and difficulty”, adding that everyone will get both citizenship and respect in the country.
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