A federal panel on religion has urged the
United States to weigh
sanctions against India's Home Minister Amit Shah if the south Asian nation adopts legislation to exclude Muslims from a path to citizenship for religious minorities from its neighbors.
Shah is a close associate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu nationalist-led government is seen by critics as pushing an agenda that undermines the secular foundations of India's democracy.
On Tuesday, parliament's lower house approved the measure covering citizenship for non-Muslim minorities, specifically Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs, who fled
Afghanistan, Bangladesh and
Pakistan before 2015.