Assam NRC: No person should be termed illegal immigrant, says Taslima Nasreen

Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen on Friday in a series of tweets raised her voice in support of the 40 lakh people whose names are missing from the Assam NRC draft and said no person should be termed "illegal immigrant".

The omission of the names of 40 lakh people from the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam has triggered a political slugfest between the ruling BJP and opposition parties.

"Early humans moved from Africa to Asia for a better life. Since then humans have been moving. Our human ancestors were not illegal," Nasreen tweeted on Wednesday.

"No person shld be called illegal immigrant. B'deshi ppl who illegally enter India, their acts are illegal based on Indian law, but they r not 'illegal' (sic)," she said.

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In another tweet, she quoted a World Bank report that Bangladeshi economic migrants can go back to their own country from India as "Bangladesh's economy is now much better than before".

"India has enough Muslims. India does not need more Muslims from neighbouring countries. But the problem is, Indian politicians need them," she wrote in another tweet.

Nasreen has been living in exile since 1994 after having earned the wrath of fundamentalists in Bangladesh over one of her novels.

In her book Nirbashan, the author wrote about her struggles from her time in exile. The book has now been translated from Bengali into English as "Exile".

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