In an unprecedented showdown against PM Narendra Modi-led NDA government’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, thousands of university students flooded the streets of India’s capital, while a southern state government led a march and demonstrators held a silent protest in the northeast on Monday.
The protests are aimed at opposing a new law that gives citizenship to non-Muslims who entered India illegally to flee religious persecution in several neighbouring countries.
But vociferous demonstrations that have been rocking the world’s largest democracy ever since Home Minister Amit Shah introduced the contentious bill in the Parliament reached their crescendo, on Sunday, as police entered the premises of a leading university and thrashed its students after numerous cases of violence surfaced in the national capital.
The protests in New Delhi followed a night of violent clashes between police and demonstrators at Jamia Millia Islamia University. People who student organizers claim were not students set at least three buses on fire and police stormed the university library, firing tear gas at students crouched under desks.
At Jamia Millia Islamia University on Monday, thousands stood outside the locked-down campus. Inside, hundreds of students took part in a peaceful sit-in, holding placards denouncing the injuries of dozens of students the night before.
The government maintains that the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which was approved by Parliament last week, will make India a safe haven for Hindus and other religious minorities in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. But critics say the legislation, which for the first time conditions Indian citizenship on religion, violates the secular constitution of the world’s largest democracy.
The law’s passage has triggered protests across India, but Assam, the centre of a decades-old movement against illegal immigrants, has seen the highest toll.
发表回复