New Delhi: Hundreds of students marched from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar on Monday to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register for Citizens.
Students, belonging to different universities, raised slogans demanding “azaadi” from the new citizenship law and carried posters which read “We stand united against CAA’, ‘Agar tum decent hote toh dissent ko samajhte’ (If you were decent, you would have understood dissent), ‘Secularism up, Communalism down down’.
They marched through Lutyens Delhi escorted by police while raising slogans. The students also lauded protesters at Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Millia Islamia, who have been on a sit-in against the CAA for a month.
The march led by the Young India Coordination Committee was joined by several student organisations and coordination committee of Jamia and Shaheen Bagh. Dinesh Kumar, research scholar at Ambedkar University, said, “The centre is being selective on which minority communities they will be giving citizenship to. Why is there a selective approach? Why is citizenship linked to religion here? What about atheists?”
Citing economic crisis, Anushree Joshi, a student of Lady Shri Ram College said the Centre does not have resources for their own citizens and with implementation of CAA, how will the government provide resources to them with such economic slowdown? “Besides, the very basis of allotment of citizenship is religion which goes against the secular fabric of our country,” she said.
Former JNUSU President N Sai Balaji led the march along with former JNU student Umar Khalid and student leader Kawalpreet Kaur. (PTI)
