Six leaders of the Trinamool Congress were yesterday detained at the Silchar airport while attempting to visit Assam post the publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The six leaders left Assam this morning after overnight detention at the airport. The Trinamool Congress has said the detention and “manhandling” of their party colleagues at the Silchar airport shows there is an “undeclared emergency” in the country.
Responding this In the Lok Sabha, Home Minister Rajnath Singh today accused Trinamool Congress MPs of creating an “unruly situation” at the Silchar airport and said they were detained in view of intelligence inputs received by the Assam government on the law and order situation.
Singh said since there were prohibitory orders in Assam, state officials had “requested” TMC MPs to return from the airport itself.
“The Government of Assam had some information and based on intelligence inputs… In view of the prevailing law and order situation and so the situation does not deteriorate, TMC MPs were detained at the Silchar airport,” Singh said.
Responding this TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee, in his speech, said citizens of India have right to move around anywhere in the country and these MPs had categorically told the state government officer at Silchar airport that “they would not hold any public meeting”.
Maintaining that the MPs were extended all courtesies, Singh said since there was no return flight to Kolkata or Delhi from Silchar, the MPs spent the night at the Silchar airport guest house and left for Kolkata this morning and have an onward flight to Delhi.
“The kind of respect that should be shown to a public representative, similar respect was shown to TMC MPs. With folded hands the District Magistrate requested them to return.
But without paying heed to the request, the MPs got into shoving in which two women security personnel also got hurt,” the Home Minister added.
In his speech, Banerjee asked the Government if it was “afraid and nervous” because of the united force of the opposition in the run up to the 2019 general elections and hence had detained the MPs. “Parliamentarians have been deprived of the right to assess the situation arising in the country. There was no injuction or interim order passed by the Supreme Court that political meetings cannot be held in Assam,” Banerjee said.
Six Trinamool Congress MPs Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Arpita Ghosh, Mamata Thakur, Ratna De Nag, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray and Nadimul Haque, and two West Bengal state ministers had reached Silchar yesterday afternoon to “assess and discuss” the problems of citizens in the aftermath of NRC. The second list of the NRC, published earlier this week, has left out the names of over 40 lakh people, of which 85-90 per cent are Bengalis, Banerjee said.
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