NEW DELHI: Hundreds of youngsters including students from different universities gathered at historic India Gate on Wednesday where they took a mass pledge to “defend the Constitution” by opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
The protesters pledged “NOT SHOW ANY DOCUMENT, ” referring to the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) to prove their citizenship.
Slogans like “kagaz nahin dikhayenge”, “tanashahi nahin chalegi” and “hum dekhenge” echoed in the area before and after scores of protesters took the pledge around the iconic monument.
The protesting crowd waved the national flag and also displayed placards with creative slogans against the new Amendment law and chanted the slogan “Aazadi“.
Excluding Muslims, the Citizenship Amendment Act grants citizenship to six non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who came to India till December 31, 2014.
The US Congressional Research Service (CRS) in its first ever report on the amended Citizenship law said, “In tandem with a National Register of Citizens (NRC) planned by the federal government, the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) may affect the status of India’s large Muslim minority of roughly 200 million.”