Hundreds of protestors on Saturday took to streets in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar against the recent amendments made to the Citizenship Act.
The protestors held placards that read: “Stop diving India”, “Boycott CAB and NRC” and “Stop religious profiling”, among others.
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation had closed entry and exit gates at Janpath and Jamia Millia Islamia metro stations briefly because of the demonstrations.
The contentious amendments allows citizenship to persecuted people of six communities – but not Muslims – from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, provided they have resided in India for six years. The cut-off date is December 31, 2014. The amendments were approved by both Houses of Parliament this week and were signed into law by President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday night.
Critics of the legislation are against using religion as the basis of providing citizenship, and ask why Muslims were left out. They have also questioned why other neighbouring countries such as Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka were left out of the ambit of the law.
Here are a few pictures from the protest:
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