Kolkata/Lucknow
India continued to witness unrest on Saturday as several states protested against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill, which makes religion the basis for granting citizenship to migrants.
The eastern state of West Bengal experienced violent protests for the third consecutive day with angry mobs burning vehicles and damaging public property. Five stationary trains were also torched in the bordering state, media reports said.
Demonstrators set fire to more than a dozen buses and vandalized at least six railway stations on Saturday, as violent protests against a new citizenship law continued for a fourth straight day.
On Saturday, protesters torched at least 15 buses on an expressway in West Bengal state, some 20 km from state capital Kolkata, holding up traffic for several hours, two police officials said. At least half a dozen railway stations in the state were vandalized and set on fire, leading to the cancelation of many long-distance trains, Sanjoy Ghosh, chief public relations Officer at South Eastern Railway told Reuters, adding it was difficult to say when normal services would resume.
Protests intensified in Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, resulting in Home Minister Amit Shah canceling his trip to the northeast.
“The protest is very intense and we will continue till the government scraps the CAB,” said Lurin Gogoi, vice president of the All Assam Students Union.
In India’s most populous Uttar Pradesh state, in the north of the country, students at the Aligarh Muslim University protested against the citizenship law and were mobilizing Muslims via doorstep invitations for a bigger protest on Sunday.
Protests were also staged in several other towns and cities of Uttar Pradesh, including in the Hindu holy city of Prayagraj, whose former name Allahabad was changed by the state’s Hindu nationalist government in 2018.
In the heart of India’s capital New Delhi, hundreds of students gathered within and outside the gates of the Jamia Milia University, making speeches and holding peaceful protests against the citizenship law amid a heavy police presence.
Addressing the ‘Bharat Bahao’ rally at the culmination of the Winter Session of Parliament in Delhi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday attacked the BJP-led government over the Citizenship Act, saying it will rip apart the soul of India and the party will stand with all those who face injustice.
Gandhi made a strong attack on Narendra Modi on a range of issues including unemployment and economy. She alleged that Modi-Shah were not concerned about parliament or constitutional institutions and were only concerned about their own politics. “They have only narrow agenda, to make people fight and take attention from real issues,” she said. Gandhi said the BJP-government “does a show” of observing Constitution Day but “daily throw Constitution to tatters”. She said India’s basic character does not allow for discriminatory steps. “They were crazy for the citizenship bill. Modi and Shah are not concerned that the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which will rip apart the soul of India as is happening in the northeast and Assam,” she said. Gandhi said that Dr BR Ambedkar and the nation builders had worked hard to strengthen the soul of India.
“I assure those who face injustice that Congress will stand with them,” she said and added the situation has turned serious for quite some time and it is “our responsibility to get out of our houses and agitate against it”. Former PM Manmohan Singh on Saturday alleged that Narendra Modi misled the people by making “lofty promises” which he “failed” to fulfil. Addressing a mega ‘Bharat Bachao’ rally at Ramlila grounds, the Congress leader said Modi had promised to take the country’s economy to $5t by 2024, double farmers’ income and provide 2 crore new jobs every year.
