A man runs past a burning bus near JMI that police said was set on fire by demonstrators [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]
Mon 16 December 2019:
More than 100 activists protesting a new Indian citizenship law were injured in New Delhi on Sunday as they clashed with police who used tear gas and baton charges to disperse demonstrators at a major university.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government says the new law will save religious minorities, such as Hindus and Christians, from persecution in neighboring Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan by offering them a path to Indian citizenship. But critics say the law, which does not make the same provision for Muslims, weakens India’s secular foundations.
Sunday was the fifth straight day of protests across the country against the law, which was enacted earlier this month, and the third day running in the capital.
Right Now outside @DelhiPolice HQ at ITO
Protests against the violence at #JamiaProtest
Video Crtsy : @suhasmunshi pic.twitter.com/GEZH3N4axf
— Shreya Dhoundial (@shreyadhoundial) December 15, 2019
Police tried to contain thousands of protesters, including locals and students, who had gathered near Jamia Millia Islamia University in southeast Delhi. Clashes erupted, and authorities said protesters torched buses, cars and motorbikes.
Officials at two hospitals said more than 100 people with injuries had been brought in following the clashes.
“Many of them have fracture injuries. We are running out of plaster of paris for casts,” said Inamul Hassan, an official at Alshifa Hospital near the university.
A spokesman for Holy Family Hospital told Reuters’ partner agency ANI that it had treated 26 students suffering minor injuries.
Police storm campus
“The police have entered the campus by force, no permission was given,” said JMI’s Chief Proctor Waseem Ahmed. “Our staff and students are being beaten up and forced to leave the campus,” he told ANI news agency.
JMI Vice Chancellor Najma Akhtar also backed the students, saying she was “hurt by the way my students were treated”.
The detained students were released in the early hours of Monday after hundreds of activists and students from other New Delhi universities protested in front of the Delhi Police headquarters.
Solidarity protests were also reported from university campuses across the country in the wake of the police action.
Watch | “They entered our hostels… Is this democracy? What wrong did we do? We were simply protesting”: Student recounts police crackdown at #JamiaMillia university yesterday. #CitizenshipAct #DelhiProtests #Jamia pic.twitter.com/VgZIu09SnA
— NDTV (@ndtv) December 16, 2019
Police entered library
Mohmmad Minhaj Uddin, a law student at the JMI, told Al Jazeera he sustained an injury to his eye after being beaten by the police.
“I don’t know why I was beaten up. I wasn’t even protesting. I was in the university library when police entered the campus,” the 26-year-old told Al Jazeera.
“They broke the lock of the library gate and entered inside and beat everyone who came in their way,” he said. “In panic, I fell on to the ground. They hit me on the eye.”
Mohammad was rushed to al-Shifa Hospital in Jamia Nagar, where he received treatment.
A video showing police beating a group of students was widely shared on social media, while another video showing students walking with their hands raised caused outrage.
Officials at al-Shifa and Holy Family hospitals said more than 100 people with injuries were brought in following the clashes.
Tension on AMU campus
Similar scenes erupted at AMU campus, about 130km (about 81 miles) away from the capital in Uttar Pradesh state, where police used tear gas and attacked students with sticks.
Thousands of students at the AMU, India’s largest minority institution, had been protesting against the citizenship law at the main entrance of the university.
On Sunday, while they were gathered at the entrance, dozens of police officers entered the campus and attacked the students with batons, firing tear gas.
Media reports said Aligarh district authorities have ordered the closure of the university.
News from AMU, 6 am:
Many students missing, at least six names confirmed. At least 22 detained in Malkhan hospital (far from campus). Official notice to vacate campus in 24 hrs. Widespread panic and fear on campus, students very reluctant to talk— Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) December 16, 2019
Police resorted to baton charges and tear gas to disperse protesters, a witness told Reuters. Officers stormed the campus to confront protesters who they said fled into the university and threw stones at police.
“About 4,000 people were protesting, and police did what they did to disperse them when the crowd burnt buses,” said Chinmoy Biswal, a senior police officer in the area. “If it had been a peaceful mob, it would have been dispersed peacefully.”
He said that police entered the campus to maintain order and that six officers had been wounded.
Some students and officials at Jamia Millia, a storied institution almost 100 years old, decried the police action.
Muslims groups, opposition parties and rights activists in India say the new citizenship law is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda to marginalise India’s 200 million Muslims.
Modi, speaking at a rally in the eastern state of Jharkhand on Sunday, accused the opposition Congress party of inciting violence.
“Those who are spreading violence can be identified by their clothes,” he said.
The Congress party, in turn, slammed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying the government “has failed at its duty to maintain peace in the nation”.
Sunday was the fifth straight day of protests in India against the citizenship law, with at least six people killed in the northeastern state of Assam.
People in the state, which has historically seen protests against undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants, fear the new law will encourage more immigrants to settle in the region.
Authorities have shut down the internet in several parts of the affected states in an attempt to maintain law and order.
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