A violent wave of protests against a citizenship law that critics say discriminates against Muslims gained strength on Indian campuses on Monday after police stormed a university in Delhi overnight, reports NDTV, The Telegraph and Hindustan Times.
Students have protested in cities across India as part of a massive wave of intensifying violent unrest over a divisive bill granting citizenship to some non-Muslims who entered the country illegally.
By Monday, the protests had spread to university campuses in the cities of Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chandigargh and Kolkata, while in Lucknow students pelted police with stones after they fired teargas at demonstrators.
Delhi
Violent agitations reached the national capital , with Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) turning into a battle ground.
The police lobbed teargas shells inside the university campus, forced their way in, and assaulted students, allegedly thrashing them even inside the library and canteen.
While many JMI students were detained, the varsity’s chief proctor, Waseem Ahmed Khan, alleged that the police entered the campus without permission. “Our staff and students are being beaten up and forced to leave the campus,” he told the media persons on Sunday.
On Monday, some university administrators defended their students. “I am deeply hurt by the barbaric way my students were treated. It is absolutely unacceptable,” said Najma Akhtar, Jamia Millia Islamia’s vice-chancellor. “I want to let my students know that they are not alone in this difficult fight.”
Not all of the demonstrations, however, are concerned with alleged Muslim discrimination.
Police have clashed with demonstrators in parts of the Indian capital, Delhi, during protests.
Police used tear gas and truncheons against protesters as buses were torched and roads were blocked.
Students of the prestigious Jamia Millia Islamia university held a protest march which ended in clashes with the police.
It is still unclear who started the violence but stones were thrown at the police who retaliated with tear gas.
At least three buses and several motorcycles were set on fire.
The university said police later entered the campus without permission and assaulted staff and students.
Police said they did what was necessary to stop the protests.
Schools near the university in southern Delhi have been asked to remain closed on Monday.
The charred remnants of buses and motorcycles were scattered around Jamia Millia Islamia’s campus in an upmarket area of Delhi on Monday morning, where several hundred students had returned to protest.
Hanzala Mojibi, a 21-year-old English student with bandages on his foot and abdomen, said police had attacked students on Sunday night. “They cornered us,” he said. “We put our hands up and said the protest was non-violent [but] they started beating us mercilessly.”
“Violence against peacefully protesting students cannot under any circumstance be justified. Allegations that the police brutally beat up and sexually harassed students in Jamia Millia Islamia University must be investigated,” Amnesty India said in a statement.
Amreen Farooq, a 24-year-old with a masters degree from Jamia Millia Islamia, said she was protesting the law because it was unconstitutional and designed to divert attention from India’s economic slowdown.
“This is a vicious cycle to distract the people,” she said. “The protests will keep happening until we get justice.”
During a march on Sunday at Jamia Millia Islamia Universityin Delhi, police entered the campus and detained more than 100 students, beating activists in the street and firing teargas.
Barricades and buses were set alight, and on Monday the university remained closed and nearby schools and offices in south Delhi were shut due to the damage.
Uttar Pradesh
In Uttar Pradesh, the Aligarh Muslim Unversity (AMU) campus has turned into a warzone.
At least 60 students were hospitalised after the police broke into the campus, leading to a clash, media reports said.
Around 8.30pm yesterday students came out of the Sir Syed gate in solidarity with Delhi’s protesting JMI students. The police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd.
The AMU registrar, Abdul Hamid, informed the media that no classes or examination will be held in the university till Jan. 5. Reports of an internet ban have also emerged, with services in Aligarh shut till Monday 10pm.
Following violence in Aligarh, the entire state of Uttar Pradesh was put on alert, the Hindi language media reported quoting authorities.
An internet block was implemented in the area on Sunday night and remained in place on Monday in an attempt to quell the mounting unrest.
Students at Nadwa college in Lucknow threw stones at police on Monday morning after clashes at Aligarh Muslim University prompted authorities to impose an internet blackout.
West Bengal
Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, led a massive protest march through the heart of Kolkata today against the newly introduced and controversial citizenship law of India.
Hundreds of her party leaders and supporters walked with her carrying posters and flags against the controversial law.
Mamata Banerjee's march from a statue of BR Ambedkar on Red Road to Jorasanko Thakurbari -- the childhood home of Rabindranath Tagore -- was dubbed unconstitutional by Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, whose ties with the Chief Minister have been tense and acrimonious, it said.
Assam
Protests in north-east India, in which, have instead been motivated by worries that the bill would allow Hindu migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh to settle in the region, threatening the area’s cultural identity.
Protests against the bill began in the north-eastern state of Assam where at least five people had died showed no sign of relenting. The bill is particularly sensitive in the state, not only because of its religiously divisive nature but also because many local people see the granting of citizenship to those from other countries as a threat to their culture.
The internet clampdown in the northeastern state of Assam continued. The agitation here first turned violent last week. Curfew was relaxed in Dibrugarh and Guwahati and in some parts of Meghalaya, while a six-hour shutdown was observed in the neighbouring state of Nagaland on December 14.
On Monday, the curfew in Guwahati has been relaxed from 6AM till 9PM.
On Sunday, the death toll of people injured in police firing on Dec. 12 in Assam rose to four with two more succumbing to their injuries at the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH).
“Two more people died of injuries in the hospital on Saturday and Sunday. Ishwar Nayak and Abdul Alim were injured in the firing,” said Ramen Talukdar, spokesperson of GMCH.
Assam continued to be on edge since last week over agitations against the CAA. The Assam government had deployed police, paramilitary forces and the army to deal with the protestors.
Kerala
Several hundred protesters also took to the streets in Kerala, another state that has said it will not allow the bill to be introduced.
The ruling Left Democratic Front and opposition United Democratic Front in Kerala came together in a first today to protest against the Centre's new citizenship law, which facilitates citizenship to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who migrated to India because of religious persecution.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and leader of opposition Ramesh Chennithala led the protests. The two leaders shared stage at the protest venue in Thiruvananthapuram and were seen exchanging pleasantries.
Vijayan's party, the CPM, has joined the opposition Congress, Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party to range themselves against the new law.
Senior CPM leader Sitaram Yechury has said the party would approach the Supreme Court against the law. It would also hold a mega protest against it on Thursday.
The opposition parties contend that the new law violates the Right to equality granted by the constitution, as it excludes Muslims from the three neighbouring nations from the grant of citizenship.
"Article 14 provides equality to all citizens. When a law is against the fundamental rights, it is unconstitutional... The government is silent about the Sri Lankan Tamils, thousands of Rohingyas. Even the United Nations has come out openly against this law," Vijayan said at the gathering.
The Chief Minister said the present "crisis" was "deliberately created" by the Centre and the "RSS agenda was to ensure that India should not be a secular, but a religious nation".
Pointing to the unprecedented spectacle of the state's bitter political opponents joining hands in a common cause, he said, "People were worried about how we will oppose a central law. Let me make our stand clear. We all took oath under the Constitution of India... Our allegiance is to the Constitution and not to the agenda of RSS," Vijayan added.
"The model before them (the RSS) is the Nazi Germany of (Adolf) Hitler. The Sangh Parivar is experimenting with Hitler's agenda. The secularism and the brotherhood of our country is threatened by igniting fake nationalism among the people," he said.
Meanwhile, Critics of the citizenship amendment bill, which was signed into law on Thursday, say it openly discriminates against Muslims.
Under the legislation, tens of thousands of Hindu, Christian, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan will be allowed to claim Indian citizenship. The same will not apply for Muslims.
Rahul Gandhi, the former head of the opposition Congress party, tweeted on Monday that the law and a mooted nationwide register of citizens also seen as anti-Muslim were “weapons of mass polarisation unleashed by fascists”.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a member of the opposition Congress party and scion of the powerful Nehru-Gandhi family, condemned the security forces and government.
“At a time when the government should go ahead and listen to the people, the BJP government is registering its presence . . . through oppression of students,” she wrote on Twitter. It is “afraid of the people's voice”.
The US government’s Commission on International Religious Freedom last week criticised the law and urged Washington to consider sanctions against Amit Shah, India’s home affairs minister, and other leaders.
In his first comments on the unrest, India’s president, Narendra Modi, tweeted: “Violent protests on the Citizenship Amendment Act are unfortunate and deeply distressing. Debate, discussion and dissent are essential parts of democracy but, never has damage to public property and disturbance of normal life been a part of our ethos.”
Modi dismissed allegations that the bill was discriminatory and he said he wanted to “assure my fellow Indians that CAA does not affect any citizen of India of any religion”.
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