PM Khan alarms world on 'ethnic cleansing of Muslims' under Modi regime

Modi, who supports the project in Assam, has pledged to roll the process out across the country.

ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday urged the international community to consider the alarming situation of ‘ethnic cleansing of Muslims’ as the Indian government prepares to strip 1.9 million people of Assam state of their citizenship under what it calls National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The premier took to Twitter and stated: “Reports in Indian and international media on Modi Govt’s ethnic cleansing of Muslims should send alarm bells ringing across the world that the illegal annexation of Kashmir is part of a wider policy to target Muslims.”

Reports in Indian and international media on Modi Govt s ethnic cleansing of Muslims should send alarm bells ringing across the world that the illegal annexation of Kashmir is part of a wider policy to target Muslims.https://t.co/QmjTDyaGVV

- Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) August 31, 2019

Earlier today, reports poured in that tens of thousands of paramilitary personnel and police have been deployed in the north-eastern state of Assam and section 144 has been imposed to tighten the security as the Modi-led Hindu nationalist Indian government use ‘citizenship issue’ to target minority Muslim community, who form one-third of Assam state’s population.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-hand Home Minister Amit Shah, who wants to implement the NRC at the national level, once dubbed the migrants as “termites”.

Coming just weeks after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) government, in violation of United Nations Security Council’s resolutions, abrogated Jammu and Kashmir’s decades-old autonomy; the NRC too is expected to go down as one of the biggest moves in Modi’s second term.

Human rights experts have raised serious concern over the drive against suspected illegal immigrants in the border state of Assam, warning it could create a humanitarian crisis that disproportionately affects Muslims and the region’s poorest communities.

The United Nations special rapporteur on minority issues, Fernand de Varennes, said the exercise “raises quite a few red flags” and “may be considered to be a discriminatory process and approach”. De Varennes said the number of people potentially affected could make this the biggest exercise in statelessness since the second world war.

Modi, who supports the project in Assam, has pledged to roll the process out across the country.