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CoverStory

ithin no time after students at Jamia
Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim
University faced brutality of police
attack for protesting against the Citi-
W zenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, stu-
dent community across the country have come on the
streets to express solidarity, widening protest base to
pan-India level. Angry protests have been reported
from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh,
Telangana, Karnataka and West Bengal. Assam and
entire North East has been in the grip of violent pro-
tests ever since the Citizenship Amendment Bill,
2019, introduced and passed in the parliament. The
incidents of violence have spurt all over the country
especially in Assam and national capital region.
Anger over the police crackdown in Delhi’s Jamia
Millia Islamia and at the controversial Citizenship
Amendment Act cascaded across many campuses
in the country on Tuesday, with politicians and civil
society supporting the students to decry what they
call an unconstitutional draconian law. India Gate has
once again become the center of protests, where civil
society is gathering to lodge protest against arbitrary
and divisive law enactment that in coming time could
disintegrate society on religious faiths. After Lokpal
and Nirbhaya agitation, protests are gaining ground
in most of the state capitals as well.
The Supreme Court of India December 17 refused
to entertain petitions seeking arrest stay of the stu-
dents and judicial inquiry into police action during
anti-CAA protests at Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh
Muslim University. The apex court relegated them to
approach respective High Courts within whose juris-
diction the incidents of violence have occurred.
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative
(CHRI) has issued a statement saying the police who
“were complicity in perpetrating violence” against the
students of Jamia Millia deserve “strict action”.
Thousands of students demanding action against
Delhi police cops continued protesting on the streets.
They wanted probe into the use of teargas inside the
Jamia’s library on December 15 as well as police enter-
ing the campus without permission from the univer-
sity authorities. The students all over the country are
outraged against police action on them.
Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act
took a violent turn in Delhi’s Seelampur on Decem-
ber 17 as protesters clashed with the police, who used
tear gas shells to disperse them, citing stone pelting
by some protesters. “A police station was damaged
amid protests over Citizenship Amendment Act in the
Seelampur area of Delhi. Initially, protest was peace-
ful but suddenly violence erupted while they were
dispersing,” the Delhi police said.
Addressing a poll rally in Jharkhand on December

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