CAA will not take away anybody's citizenship: Shahnawaz

 Minority communities like the Buddhists in Afghanistan and the Christians in Pakistan are unsafe and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will provide them Indian citizenship under the law, BJP national spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said.

Addressing a press conference in Panaji on Wednesday, Hussain said that for Muslims who chose to live in India after the partition of the country, India is their motherland and and no one could exile them.

"Even earlier, when there was the Nehru-Liaquat pact, there was an agreement that in both the countries there would not be persecution in the name of religion. But in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Buddhists were being persecuted," Hussain said.

"In Afghanistan, in Bamiyan the statues built in the mountains were bombarded. What then of the people who live there? Even today, in Pakistan, Christian girls are being sold for marriage to Chinese because they are Christian. If these people want to come to India we will give them a home and citizenship," Hussain added.

"CAA is not to take away anybody's citizenship, it is a bill to give citizenship," Hussain said.

The BJP national spokesperson accused the Congress of trying to stoke violence across the country against the CAA, and said the intention of the Act was not to snatch citizenship, but to bestow it on those who are persecuted.

"To the Indian Muslims I want to state, don't fall for the Congress trap, the Congress that has fallen at the election. The disappointed Congress is trying to frighten the Indian Muslims and the people of the North East," he said, while blaming the Opposition party for the violence at the Jamia Millia Islamia University and Aligarh Muslim University.

"Behind both these events, the Congress is responsible. They are standing behind the curtains and orchestrating it," Hussain said.IANS