NEW DELHI, Dec 22 (NNN-PTI) – The death toll in violent protests against the controversial new citizenship law in India rose to 22 on Saturday.
A 25-year-old man was killed during clashes with police, in Rampur district of the northern Uttar Pradesh, taking the death toll to 15 in the state. The dead include an eight-year-old boy, trampled in a stampede, after police charged the crowd with batons.
A senior police official, Shirish Chandra, said, “One got killed today (yesterday), in Rampur, 13 were killed in yesterday’s violence in different districts and one person was killed on Thursday in Lucknow.”
Massive protests rocked the state since Thursday, against the new citizenship law that protesters say was discriminatory towards Muslims.
Locals said, clashes broke out when police tried to stop the protest rallies. Police fired tear gas shells and charged protesters with batons, who responded by throwing stones at the police.
Authorities imposed prohibitory orders across the state and suspended internet services at a dozen districts.
Protests against the law was triggered on Dec 11, the day India’s upper house of parliament passed the controversial citizenship law.
Since then there has been no let-up in the protests.
On Saturday thousands of people again took to the streets. Reports said, massive protests were underway in New Delhi, Guwahati, and several cities of Bihar, West Bengal, Chennai and Kerala.
The law aims at granting citizenship to illegal immigrants belonging to six religions — Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Parsi and Christianity — from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, it has kept out Muslim immigrants from applying for citizenship.
Opposition parties and civil society members in India, criticise the law as contrary to secular principles, enshrined in India’s constitution, as it excludes Muslims.– NNN-PTI