Centre to bring anti-racial discrimination law: Rijiju

The central government will soon come up with new laws to punish racial discrimination, union minister Kiren Rijiju said on Saturday.

The minister of state for home affairs also said the subject of racial discrimination will be introduced in the education curriculum.

"Racial discrimination is the worst form of crime. Therefore, we have decided to come up with two new sections within the provision of the Indian Penal Code to punish racial discrimination," he said at the Mega Arunachal Tribe Festival-2015 cum cultural exchange programme with the northeastern region.

"Once this stringent legislation is enacted, any person who abuses on racial lines will be taken to task," Rijiju said at the event organised here in Meghalaya.

Rijiju said the central government through the human resource development ministry has decided to include subjects about the northeastern region in the curriculum from next year.

"We are formulating it... probably by next year, right from nursery school up to Class 11 and from degree, MA, M.Phil to Ph.D level, we will be having chapters about the northeast," he said.

On Bangladeshi Hindus persecuted on religious grounds in their country, Rijiju assured that the northeastern states alone will not bear the burden of providing them shelter.

"To give them citizenship or not is the prerogative of the government. But it is a humanitarian effort to give shelter to those people who have come to India especially under religious persecution from Bangladesh," he said.

"The northeastern states alone will not take the burden of providing accommodation to these people, but it must be shared by all the states," he said.