India’s external spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) had expressed “great concern” over the possibility of intelligence agencies like the Pakistan’s ISI exploiting the legal framework provided by the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to push their “own people” into the country.
The R&AW’s concerns were positioned before a Joint Committee of Parliament, which scrutinised the now lapsed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in advance when certainly one of its Joint Secretary deposed earlier than the panel headed by means of BJP MP Rajendra Agrawal. “…our simplest concern has been that the companies who are inimical to us should now not have a prison framework within which they could make the most our scenario and infiltrate their very own humans into our personal country. That is a matter of tremendous challenge for us,” the R&AW legit turned into quoted as pronouncing in the panel document positioned in Parliament in January this 12 months.
Sources stated the organizations had been concerned that Pakistan’s ISI may want to use the provisions inside the Bill to push their recruits posing as a Pakistani or a Bangladeshi non-Muslim to obtain citizenship and use them against India.
The panel had heard appreciably the submissions of R&AW and Intelligence Bureau officers at some stage in its deliberations. This Bill, even though exceeded in the previous Lok Sabha, lapsed because it turned into no longer cleared by the Rajya Sabha before the Lower House’s term ended in May this year.
The Government has provide with a new Bill, that’s indexed for creation and passage in Lok Sabha on Monday, with new provisions that exclude the ambit of the proposed law in areas that is underneath Inner Line Permit regime and people covered beneath Sixth Schedule to cope with the concerns of north-east states.
The Bill, a poll promise of the ruling BJP, permits a non-Muslim without right journey documents from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to accumulate Indian citizenship if they may prove their residency in India for five years as in opposition to six years prescribed inside the previous model of the proposed legislation.
In their deposition earlier than the panel, the Intelligence Bureau officers had said that the on the spot beneficiaries of the Bill might be 31,313 human beings Hindus and different minority community participants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
“As in line with our information, 31,313 people belonging to minority communities who have been given Long Term Visas on the idea in their declare of religious persecution in their respective nations and want Indian citizenship. Hence, these folks will be immediately beneficiaries,” it had stated. Among the 31,313, it said, 25,447 are Hindus, 5,807 are Sikhs, 55 Christians and two each Buddhists and Parsis.
The organisation had stated that there may be “no security implications” if citizenship is given underneath the brand new amendment as “all these persons are already living in the country for decades”.
