After shamelessly lying about the Citizenship Amendment Act on the NDTV townhall yesterday, the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has displayed shocking ignorance of the legislation that intends to grant citizenship to persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
At a time when the country is plagued with protests against the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act, far from allaying the concerns of the agitated people, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal is going overboard to fuel apprehensions among people. Raising suspicions about the CAA, Kejriwal asked what’s the guarantee Pakistan won’t send spies as Hindus to seek asylum in India.
What is guarantee Pakistan won’t send spies as Hindus under #CAA: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) January 4, 2020
Under the Citizenship Amendment Act passed by the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, persecuted minorities-Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians, who have entered India on or before December 31, 2014 will be granted the citizenship of the country.
The cut-off date for applying the citizenship of the country for the persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh has been kept as December 31, 2014. It means, those who have managed to flee persecution and enter India on or before December 31, 2014, will stand eligible for seeking the citizenship of the country under the provisions listed in the CAA.
For those coming to India after that date using legal means, they will have to stay in India for 5 years before applying for citizenship, against 11 years for others. Moreover, all other provisions of naturalisation apply to them, which includes a thorough background check by intelligence agencies.
However, Kejriwal displayed no regard for the fine nitty-gritty of the Citizenship Amendment Act, and brazenly fanned misgivings about the legislation by claiming that Pakistan might send spies under the guise of persecuted Hindus. The opposition parties including AAP is opposing CAA because it does not includes Muslims. Now Kejriwal should answer why he is asking Muslims to be included in CAA, because Pakistan can more easily send Muslims as spies to India.
Pakistan does not need CAA to send spies as Arvind Kejriwal thinks, people regularly go from one country to the other using legal means, and anyone can be sent as spies using existing means of international travel using visa-passports. In fact, most countries use postings in their embassies and consulates in other countries to send spies, as officials posted at such offices enjoy diplomatic immunity.
Earlier, the Delhi CM lied through his teeth in the NDTV town-hall session when he claimed that the government seeks to disenfranchise the Hindu citizens of India through the Citizenship Amendment Act.
In a session moderated by NDTV’s Nidhi Razdan, who seemed to extend her support to Kejriwal in his lies, the Delhi CM elaborated his limited understanding of the Act by claiming that the central government will make papers for Hindus coming from Pakistan, but for Hindus in India, if they don’t have papers, they will have to leave the country. “Read the law if I am wrong”, he asserted. Kejriwal went on by saying so much love for Pakistani Hindus, but Indian Hindus will have to leave if they don’t have papers, what was the need of this law I don’t understand,” he said.
