[Opponents say the measure is unconstitutional and marks a break with India’s founding ethos of secularism. The government says the objective of the law is to ease the hardships of persecuted religious minorities who illegally entered India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.]
By Joanna
Slater and Niha Masih
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Students
at India’s Jamia Millia Islamia University shout slogans during a protest
in
New Delhi on Monday. (Manish Swarup/AP)
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NEW
DELHI — Fresh protests swept
India on Monday, a day after police entered a university campus in the nation's
capital and injured hundreds of students who were expressing opposition to the
country's controversial new citizenship law.
Students said Delhi police officers beat them
with batons, hurled insults and fired tear gas canisters inside the campus
after a march outside the university gates turned violent.
New demonstrations took place in at least 17
cities on Monday. The protests are part of a wave of unrest that has gripped
India following the passage of the citizenship law on Dec. 11. The measure was
a priority for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won reelection in May
and has moved to implement his party’s agenda of emphasizing Hindu primacy in
India.
The law introduced religion as a criterion
for nationality for the first time and created an expedited path toward
citizenship for migrants who belong to six religions — excluding Islam, the
faith practiced by 200 million Indians.
Opponents say the measure is unconstitutional
and marks a break with India’s founding ethos of secularism. The government
says the objective of the law is to ease the hardships of persecuted religious
minorities who illegally entered India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and
Afghanistan.
Some of the protesters view the law as
inherently discriminatory, while others — particularly in India’s northeast —
fear it will accelerate demographic and linguistic change. Four people were
killed by police gunfire in the northeastern state of Assam during protests
there against the law.
On Monday, Modi wrote that the recent
“violent protests . . . are unfortunate and deeply distressing.” He
appealed for calm and appeared to blame the demonstrations on his political
opponents. “We cannot allow vested interest groups to divide us and create
disturbance,” he said.
Speaking at a rally on Sunday, Modi said the
protesters who were setting fires “can be identified by their clothes.” Critics
called the statement a political dog whistle to refer to Muslims, who often
wear distinctive garb.
Amit Shah, Modi’s powerful second-in-command,
has repeatedly stated that the citizenship law will be followed by a nationwide
registry in which all Indians will have to provide documents proving their
citizenship, ostensibly to identify migrants who entered the country illegally.
The reaction by law enforcement to the
protests is spurring further demonstrations, raising the prospect of continued
unrest. On Sunday, a protest near a university in New Delhi turned violent,
with protesters throwing stones at police. Four buses and dozens of motorcycles
were set on fire.
The police beat protesters with batons and
fired tear gas as the officers entered the university. A spokesman for the
Delhi police, M.S. Randhawa, told reporters Monday afternoon that police
personnel had used “maximum restraint” and “minimum force.” Two dozen police
officers were injured in the clash.
Najma Akhtar, vice chancellor of Jamia Millia
Islamia University, told reporters that police had entered the campus without
the permission of university authorities and that about 200 students were
injured. The university’s students are primarily Muslims.
A doctor at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital told
The Washington Post that two protesters were brought in with bullet wounds. One
was shot in the chest and the other in the foot, said the doctor, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity because he feared harassment by the police. Four
police officers escorted the two young men “like prisoners,” he said, adding
that both were in stable condition after treatment.
The Delhi police, through an official Twitter
account, denied that any bullets had been fired.
Social media was awash with videos showing
police attacking unarmed students. In one viral video, a group of young women
try to shield a young man from stick-wielding police officers who repeatedly
beat him. Another widely shared video shows students in a university library
taking cover as smoke fills the room. The assault on a college campus shocked
many in Delhi, who could not recall a similar incident in recent times.
Iman Usmani, an 18-year-old student, was
participating in a march Sunday when the crowd came upon a large number of
police officers, who began striking people with batons and firing tear gas
canisters. One of the canisters burst right next to her, Usmani said, and she
fainted.
“I could not breathe. Some students rubbed
salt on my face,” she said. “Police went inside the campus, hitting people and
lobbing tear gas shells at the canteen and library.”
Ishita, a 21-year-old student who asked to be
identified only by her first name because she feared reprisals by the police,
said she was on campus as others clashed with police outside. Then tear gas
canisters started to land inside the gate.
With her eyes and throat burning, she and
other students began running toward the main library. Police officers chased
them, she said, yelling insults — “sluts,” “Pakistanis,” “traitors” — and
beating anyone they could with long sticks. She said she hid in a bathroom
upstairs in the library, not daring to move.
Umar Ashraf, 24, was inside a reading room on
campus when he said he heard the sound of tear gas canisters being fired.
“You couldn’t see anything. The air was full
of smoke,” he said. “Students were running helter-skelter.” One of his friends
who hid inside a bathroom was dragged out and beaten by police. Ashraf said he
ran out through a back lane to save himself.
“They were hitting people as though they were
beating a drum,” he said.
Tania Dutta contributed to this report.
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