Ahmedabad:
Around 100 students and activists on Monday held a peaceful protest outside Sabarmati Ashram here against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The protesters also expressed solidarity with the students of New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and denounced the violence that took place in the campus earlier this month.
The protest, organised by the Young India National Coordination Committee — a body of university students — is latest in a series of demonstrations held here since the new citizenship law was passed by Parliament in mid-December.
The protesters, numbering around 100, held posters with slogans like ‘No CAA-No NRC’, ‘Listen to the people’, ‘With JNU Students’, Stand with students’, ‘Young India Against CAA-NRC’ and ‘Hum Leke Rahenge Aazadi’.
Students from prominent institutions like the National Institute of Design (NID), Cept University, Central University of Gujarat, IIT Gandhinagar, Nirma University and Gujarat Vidyapith took part in the peaceful protest, said social activist Dev Desai, one of the participants.
He said the demonstration outside Sabarmati Ashram, a place closely linked with Mahatma Gandhi, was organised with police permission.
On January 17, students and activists had held a similar anti-CAA/NRC protest outside the IIM Ahmedabad.
The CAA seeks to grant citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Parsis and Jain refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India on or before December 31, 2014.
The new citizenship law’s passage in Parliament triggered nationwide protests, which turned violent at some places, including in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
To counter such protests, the BJP has launched its own nationwide pro-CAA drive.
CAA’s critics say the law is discriminatory and violates the core values of the Constitution.
