Life Imprisonment in 'Love Jihad' Cases In Assam Soon: CM Himanta Sarma
- By Thetripurapost Desk, Guwahati
- Aug 05, 2024
- 474
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said his government will soon introduce a new law providing for life imprisonment in cases of "love jihad".
"We had talked about 'love jihad' during the elections. We will soon bring a law providing for life imprisonment in such cases," Sarma said at a meeting of the BJP's extended state executive here.
Sarma also said a new domicile policy will be introduced soon under which only people born in Assam will be eligible for state government jobs.
The chief minister said his government was working to protect the rights of the indigenous people. He said they have been given priority in "one lakh government jobs" as per a pre-poll promise, which will become clear when the full list is published. In contrast, up to 30 per cent of constable jobs in the state police force were given to people from a "particular community" under the Congress government when the sitting Dhubri MP was in charge of the home department, Sharma claimed, without elaborating.
Congress' Rakibul Hussain won the Dhubri Lok Sabha seat in this year's elections. Sharma said his government had freed encroached land equal to the size of Chandigarh from illegal settlers, but the state still has land equivalent to "20 times the size of the northern Union Territory" occupied by encroachers.
Other initiatives to protect land rights include a proposal to bring a law to prohibit the sale of land to people of a "particular community" in the undivided Goalpara district, he said. Chief Minister Sharma said the Assam government has also taken a decision regarding the sale of land between Hindus and Muslims.
He said though the government cannot stop such transactions, it has made it mandatory to take the chief minister's consent before going ahead.
The state government had issued a similar notification on March 7, prohibiting the sale of land between two different communities for three months to avoid any possible "communal conflict" ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.