Mumbai, Dec 12 (IANS): In what could be a jolt to the government, senior IPS officer Abdur Rahman on Wednesday quit his service, ostensibly in protest against the Citizens (Amendment) Bill, which was passed by the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in the post two days.

"Yes, I have quit the service citing personal reasons. I have also released a statement explaining in detail the reasons behind my decision," Rahman, an IGP rank officer with the Maharashtra Police, told IANS soon after quitting.

Condemning the Bill, he said as a 'civil disobedience' move, he decided to resign from the police service and will not attend official duties from Thursday.

He appealed to all those belonging to the poor and deprived sections to oppose the Bill in a democratic manner as it would harm them the most, and also called upon the tolerant, secular and justice-loving Hindus to oppose the Bill, besides activists who should challenge it in the courts.

With 22 years of distinguished police service behind him, Rahman said that the Bill aims to grant citizenship to illegal migrants from all communities except Muslims.

"It clearly discriminates against the people belonging to the Muslim community. The Bill is totally un-Constitutional and against the very basic feature of Equality before Law," Rahman said in his statement.

He said it is against the very ethos and spirit of the Constitution and violates Articles 14, 15 and 25 of the Constitution, and that religion cannot be the basis for giving or denying a person citizenship.

"The whole idea behind the Bill is to divide the nation on religious and sectarian lines. It creates fear among the people belonging to the Muslim community. It also compels Muslims to leave their faith and adopt some other religion to save their citizenship. This is totally divisive and unconstitutional," Rahman said in the hard-hitting communication, which went viral on social media with thousands of likes and retweets in a short time.

Referring to the Assam example on National Register of Citizens (NRC), the officer said that if it is implemented jointly with the CAB, non-Muslims will be declared refugees and granted Indian citizenship even if they cannot produce the required documents.

"This means that the real burden will be only on Muslims to prove their citizenship. This will cause statelessness and hardships to Muslims who have been living in India for thousands of years and a majority of them are the original inhabitants of India," Rahman said.

Rahman also apologised to those who wanted him to continue in service and urged for justice to all the deprived people.