Najeeb Jung on CAA: Include Muslims or remove names of other religions

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Jan 21, 2020: Amid ongoing protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, former Delhi lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung Monday said the legislation required a revamp and should be made inclusive.

“I feel that the Citizenship Amendment Act needs a revamp. They should either include Muslims or remove other names (of religions). If Prime Minister Narendra Modi calls these people and talks, the matter will be resolved,” Jung said while addressing protesters at Jamia Millia Islamia, Indian Express reported.

 

Jung, who was also the Jamia vice-chancellor, questioned the Centre over not meeting the anti-CAA protesters while saying that former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s government had met agitators when the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement was going on.

“When the common man’s agitation was going on, the Manmohan Singh-led government had met Arvind Kejriwal and his associates. There is a revolution happening at every nook and corner… You (government) will have to discuss this with these students. They will run the country,” PTI quoted Jung as saying.

In the middle of his speech, Jung read out the Preamble of the Constitution. He concluded his speech by singing the national anthem.

Jung also condemned the police action in the university, besides the violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

“We still do not know who (all) were involved in it… Such incidents are very shameful for any democracy and the national capital,” he said, referring to the January 5 rampage inside JNU, which left over 36 injured.

Jung was one of the 106 personalities who had recently written an open letter, saying that the National Population Register and the National Register of Citizens were “unnecessary and wasteful exercises” which would cause hardships to the public.

“We have our grave reservations about the Constitutional validity of the CAA provisions, which we also consider to be morally indefensible. We would like to emphasise that a statute that consciously excludes the Muslim religion from its purview is bound to give rise to apprehensions in what is a very large segment of India’s population,” said the letter, titled “India does not need the CAA-NPR-NRIC”.