Hemmed in by barricades and police and paramilitary swarming all over the place, the troubled Jahangirpuri on Friday showed signs of returning to normalcy, with the local peace committee calling for communal harmony and members of the warring communities embracing each other, agreeing to let bygones be bygones.
The Asom Gana Parishad's fears relating to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill are not misplaced. But does the party still matter in Assam's politics?
The foreign minister said he has other engagements in Bangladesh while the home minister cancelled the visit due to ongoing protests against CAB.
Wearing saffron scarves and holding saffron flags, the Bajrang Dal and VHP activists on motorcycles raised 'Jai Sriram' slogans.
'Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is sincere about maintaining religious harmony in the country.' 'But for mysterious reasons, it does not reach the grassroots activists of her party.'
'Amit Shah needs to understand that we are not against Hindus. But we need to preserve our ethnic character.'
'There is a design of fundamentalists that the north east must become an Islamic country.'
Those leaving were mostly engaged as masons, maids and housekeepers in the country, another BSF official said.
As per the plans, the survey will be conducted to identify people of four communities -- Goria, Moria, Desi and Jolah of the tea tribes -- considered as indigenous.
The issue of the amended Citizenship Act is an internal matter of India, Advisor to Hasina on international affairs, Gauhar Rizvi, said in Kolkata.
'An army general is not supposed to speak on political issues.' 'He should be keeping away from politics.'
Let us see the problem for what it actually is: Illegal Immigration plain and simple, confined to the northeast with a definite communal slant that poses a national security risk and one that needs to be dealt with firmly and promptly by stringent identification (and deportation), says Vivek Gumaste.
'As soon as the violence broke out, they should have stepped in and sent a message that the state is there to stop this violence.' 'Had they done it right there, the situation would not have gone out of control.'
Togadia clarified he was not against the minorities but would continue to speak in favour of Hindus.
'We want to protect our history, we want to protect our people from getting overwhelmed by the influx from Bangladesh, that is why the people of Assam are out in the streets,' says former Assam chief minister and Asom Gana Parishad leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.
Government sources had claimed on Tuesday that four persons have committed suicide in fear of NRC so far, while four others had died while waiting in queues to procure the requisite papers.
'The BJP and RSS were working on the ground to define who is an illegal immigrant.'
A bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari issued notice to the Centre, West Bengal and Election Commission of India on the plea, which also sought to central and state governments to award compensation to the victims and their family members after ascertaining the nature of loss sustained by them in post-poll violence in the state.
Praising the Centre for CAA, he said: "I do not understand why Muslims are protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act. CAA is not for the Muslims who were born here."
'We are only going to the Supreme Court to protect the rights (of Muslims) which are given by the Constitution. Nothing more,' says Indian Union Muslim League MP P V Abdul Wahab, explaining why the IUML has challenged the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Supreme Court.
'To treat a Hindu fleeing persecution and certain death in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan on par with a Muslim voluntarily sneaking into India for economic reasons or otherwise is callously cruel, blatantly perverse and grossly unjust.' 'The concept of equality cannot be invoked to perpetuate a historical wrong that needs to be righted,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
He claimed that the violence is aimed at fomenting trouble in his nation with an eye on the next general election.
The desecration of Vidyasagar's statue during Amit Anilchandra Shah's rally, which the TMC projected to be a 'Bhojpuri' and 'Dhokla' invasion on West Bengal's culture, may help her gain some favour with middle-class and erudite Bengalis in the last phase of the polls.
The AGP had in January withdrew its support to the BJP government in Assam in protest against the Centre's decision to go ahead with the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.
On December 4, the Union Cabinet cleared the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they faced religious persecution there. The government intends to introduce bill in Parliament's Winter Session next week. What is this legislation and why is it contentious?
'The Bodos and the Assamese were at each other's throats, the Assamese Muslims and the Bengali Muslims were at each other's throats, the Bengali speaking Muslims and Hindus were coming together against the Assamese speaking caste Hindus and the plains tribes and vice versa.'
'I don't think the state administration has shown the resolve to enter Muslim neighbourhoods and arrest offenders in the last decade.'
Shah said Banerjee will not be in a position to oppose the implementation of the CAA as she will cease to be the chief minister after the assembly polls likely in April-May this year.
'I do not think that we are showing Hindu humanity and humaneness in the process of the National Register of Citizens.'
'The loose use of words like foreigner or Bangladeshis obscures the fact that the post-Partition migration to Assam has been of both Hindus and Muslims.'
'In terms of sheer incompetence, this government has rivaled the Rajiv Gandhi-led government that was derisively called the 'Baba-log' government for its naive handling of many issues,' notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'In other parts of India, people may feel their religious identity is more important, but here in Assam, we are Assamese first and then, anything else. So, we are against this CAB (now CAA). It will hurt the interests of us Assamese'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday offered prayers at a Matua temple in Bangladesh's Orakandi, the birthplace of Hindu mystic figure and Matua community's spiritual guru Harichand Thakur.
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Saturday said Hindu migrants from Bangladesh must be accommodated in the country and detention camps would be done away with once his party comes to power.
'The curtain is coming down on India's leadership role as a regional power even before the drama of the Asian Century truly began,' warns Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The cow is sacred to many of us, but these killings are definitely not part of the Hinduism we know and practise,' says Jyoti Punwani.
About 2 million head of cattle are smuggled into Bangladesh annually.
According to Owaisi, the CAA was only made towards making India a Hindu Rashtra.
It is mischievous to imply that the proposed bill to grant citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists from other nations implies that Muslims and Christians are not Indians, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
Tarun Vijay visits 20 Durga Puja pandals in five towns in Bangladesh and comes back impressed.
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