Rahul Gandhi to visit Assam on Saturday, extend solidarity to anti-CAA protesters

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will pay a day-long visit to Assam on Saturday to extend the party's solidarity to the people protesting against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, its senior leader said.

Gandhi will also address a party rally and pay the party's tributes to the five people who were killed in the state during the stir against the Act, Congress in-charge of Assam, Harish Rawat told reporters here on Friday.

"Rahul Gandhi will speak to people about how the Modi government at the Centre and the BJP government in the state are trying to crush a democratic movement and stifle dissent with brutality," Rawat said.

He said Rahul Gandhi also wishes to meet the families of 16-year-old Sams Steford and 17-year-old Dipanjal Das, who were killed during the stir at Chaygaon near Guwahati.

"Rahul Gandhi had visited the families of those killed in unprovoked firing during anti-CAA protests in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh as he believes it is his humanitarian duty," Rawat, a former Uttarakhand chief minister, said.

He pointed out that it was the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, a Congress leader, who had signed the Assam Accord in 1985, that had the provision of religion-neutral NRC, respecting the sentiments of the people of Assam.

Rawat said Congress president Sonia Gandhi had told a visiting delegation of the Assam's civil society that the party was "obliged" to heed the sentiments of the people of the state on CAA.

"We believe that our secular Constitution and our cultural unity forge the concept of India. CAA crushes and destroys everything," Rawat said.