A Muslim cleric in West Bengal has threatened to block Kolkata airport if the Citizenship (Amendment) Act is not revoked. Claiming that the citizenship law is unfair to the Muslim population of the country, the cleric, Abbas Siddiqui from Furfura Sharif, in Jangipara, Hoogly, West Bengal, urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to either move Supreme Court challenging the contentious citizenship law or bring a resolution against the Act in state Assembly.
Speaking to Times Now the cleric said he has asked Mamata Banerjee to take immediate steps to stall the Act or else “she risks losing the support of Muslims in West Bengal.” He added that all the protests that the West Bengal CM is leading in the state might be satisfactory for other people, but they are not enough to satisfy the Muslim population.
On December 22, West Bengal minister and state president of Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind Siddiqullah Chowdhury had also threatened to disallow Union Home Minister Amit Shah to step out of the airport whenever he visits the city if the Citizenship Amendment Act is not immediately withdrawn.
“We may not allow him (Shah) to step out of the city airport if necessary. We may gather one lakh people there to stop him,” he said at a Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind rally against the CAA.
The speakers at the rally also thanked Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for hitting the streets to register her protest against CAA and NRC.
Reacting to his remarks, BJP’s West Bengal unit chief Dilip Ghosh had told PTI that Chowdhury has made such “provocative comments” in the past, too, with the “tacit support of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.”
Inspired by the Chief Minister’s outcry against the central government’s decision to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act in the country, several Muslims in West Bengal have resorted to extreme violence, arson, stone-pelting in the pretext of protesting against the Citizenship Law.
Mamata Banerjee, probably scared of losing her vote bank, has been extremely critical about the recently legislated Citizenship Amendment Act, asserting that she would not allow CAA and NRC to be implemented in her state West Bengal. A concerted campaign was run by the Trinamool Congress party to slam the Citizenship Law that aims to grant citizenship to persecuted non-Muslims from three neighbouring Islamic countries – Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Posters were put up by TMC claiming that CAA and NRC will not be implemented in West Bengal. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has at least on four occasions hit the streets to register her protest against CAA and NRC.
