A high-level team of Congress including leaders like team Jairam Ramesh, Mukul Wasnik and Sushmita Dev on Thursday visited a detention centre in Silchar and met people who are 'illegally' detained as foreigners.
Taking to Twitter, Ramesh tweeted: "Visited a detention centre in Silchar just now. 48 genuine Indian citizens not having 'proper' papers.17 from Bangladesh who strayed in and want to go back but are not bring accepted, and 6 from Myanmar who don't want to go back. A very depressing and sobering experience..."
Assam Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ripun Bora said the team discussed regarding the party stand on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) with district office bearers, party workers, MLAs and former legislators.
"Today visited the Detention Camp at Silchar Central Jail with the high-level team of AICC Jairam Ramesh, Bhanwar Jitendra Singh, Mckam Tagore, Mukul Wasnik, Sushmita Dev, Ranajit Mukherjee to meet the detainees who are illegally detained as foreigner," he tweeted.
The Congress party also sent the delegation to North-East states to take feedback on the issue of NRC and CAB from ground level.
Earlier on October 25, a meeting was held at Sonia Gandhi's residence in the national capital with the senior leaders including from North East, but no consensus was reached and no final stand was taken.
Gandhi was not satisfied with the view of the leaders from the states as many leaders have a difference of opinion on the issues. In fact, Tripura Congress unit president Pradyot Deb Barman quit the party alleging that he was asked to withdraw his plea filed in the Supreme Court.
The NRC list is aimed at segregating Indian citizens living in Assam from those who had illegally entered the state from Bangladesh. In the final NRC list published on August 31, a total of 3,11,21,004 persons were found eligible for inclusion in the list leaving out 19,06,657 persons, including those who did not submit their claims in Assam.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8, aims at granting citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghstan who came to India before December 31, 2014.
( With inputs from ANI )