New Delhi: Continuing his streak of inflammatory remarks, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said that the state will introduce a law against ‘love jihad’ carrying a life term and work to curb land sales to Muslims.
‘Love jihad’ is the term used by the Hindu right-wing to describe an imaginary ‘conspiracy’ devised by Muslim men to coerce Hindu women into converting to Islam by luring them into romantic relationships, with the aim of turning India into a Muslim majority country.
Sarma was addressing the Bharatiya Janata Party’s state executive meeting in Guwahati, where he said, “At the time of elections, we had spoken about love jihad. In the coming days, we will bring a new law that will introduce life imprisonment as a penalty for love jihad cases.”
Other states like Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh already have laws in place for ‘love-jihad’ cases.
Sarma also said that different measures to curb land sales to Muslims will be introduced in the state, adding that the chief minister’s consent would be necessary for such land transactions.
“Earlier, there were inter-religious land transfers. Hindus’ lands were bought by Muslims, Muslims’ lands were bought by Hindus. The government cannot prevent such transactions but it has decided that for the land of a Hindu to be bought by a Muslim and vice-versa, there can be land sale permission only after the chief minister’s consent is taken,” he said.
Sarma said that the state government would specifically introduce restrictions on sale of land to a “particular community” in Lower Assam’s Goalpara region, the Indian Express reported.
“Undivided Goalpara was an integral part of Assam, of great importance to the Koch Rajbongshi community. But people from a particular community kept snatching land from our indigenous people there and today we are in the minority in our own land. The government has decided that within the next few days, we will bring a law that in Undivided Goalpara district, no one can sell our land to members of a particular community. The land that continues to remain with tribal people, SC people, OBC people there, we will not let it be transferred anymore,” he said.
He also said that the land sale in important centres of Assam’s neo-vaishnavite culture in Barpeta, Majuli and Batadrava will also be restricted to “native” people.
The Assam government will also introduce a domicile policy to ensure that only those born in the state are eligible for government jobs here, he announced, adding that indigenous youth will be given the lion’s share of the one-lakh government jobs promised by him.
