India’s new citizenship law has prompted fears that nearly 100,000 Sri Lankan refugees living in India will have to return to Sri Lanka, foreign media reports.
Under India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Sri Lankan refugees, who left Sri Lanka during the war, are not eligible for citizenship.
The CAA was introduced to expedite the path to Indian citizenship of Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the move “will have no effect on citizens of India, including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Christians, and Buddhists”. But Sri Lankan refugees’ fate remains uncertain. However, it has been reported that Indian Home Minister Amit Shah had promised Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami he would consider the issue of Tamil refugees excluded from CAA.
Indian officials have shown that a majority of the refugees, about 60,000 of them, are residing in camps in Tamil Nadu. Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at advocacy group, Human Rights Watch has called the move to exclude some marginalised groups from the CAA as “extremely disturbing”
The CAA and introduction of a National Register of Citizens sparked violent protests across India. Foreign media states that at least 25 persons had died in clashes with the police.