Modi says Indian Muslims have nothing to fear from new citizenship law

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Parliament on Thursday that Indian Muslims have nothing to fear from a new citizenship law and accused opposition parties of toeing Pakistan’s line to create fear.

Modi said the Congress and other opposition parties had incited the nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, which fast-tracks naturalisation for Hindus, Christians and other religious minorities who have fled persecution in India’s Muslim-majority neighbours Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Related: India’s Citizenship Bill has only one aim: protect non-Muslims, harass Muslims

“Pakistan is trying every trick to mislead the Muslims of India,” Modi said in his closing speech during the budget session of Parliament.

He also said “the new act will not impact the people of India, whether Muslims, Sikhs or Christians,” and accused opposition parties of employing “vote politics” to win support from Muslims, who are nearly 14 per cent of India’s 1.3 billion people.

Rahul Gandhi, a top Congress party leader, accused Modi of sidestepping key economic issues of rising unemployment and falling growth.

Parliament approved the new citizenship law on December 11, and in the nationwide protests that followed, at least 23 people were killed. Critics of the law have called it discriminatory and say it violates India’s secular constitution.

Supporters say it is an answer to religious discrimination in other places. Muslim migrants not included in the law still can seek citizenship under a 1955 law.

Pakistan has called India’s citizenship law a manifestation of Modi’s India taking a Hindu supremacist agenda. Prime Minister Imran Khan criticised Modi and accused India of human rights violations while speaking to a rally on Thursday in Azad Kashmir.

The premier said Modi had converted Indian-occupied Kashmir into the world’s largest prison and he hoped its people will soon get independence. Modi’s government last August ended the semi-autonomous status of occupied Kashmir and imposed a harsh security crackdown that has not been fully eased.

Critics of the Modi government’s actions fear the new law and a possible nationwide citizenship registry together could leave millions of people stateless.

A registry in Assam state last year excluded nearly two million people, about half Hindu and half Muslim. They must prove their citizenship in quasi-legal tribunals or risk being declared foreign and stripped of rights.

The manifesto of Modi’s political party, which won by a landslide last year, promised a national registry. But Modi backed away from it after pressure mounted with the protests against the citizenship law.